LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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rMTKI) STATES OF AMEIUCA. 






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THE CREATION 



AND 



THE SCRIPTURE 



THE REVELATION OF GOD 



BY y 

GILBERT CHICHESTER MONELL, M.D. 

w 




NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

27 AND 29 WEST 23D STREET 
1882 






Copyright by 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

1882 



Prrss 0/ 

G. r. PtttuanCs So}ts 
X^-v York 



PREFACE, 



This volume was found, in manuscript, among 
the unpublished writings of G. E. Monell, M.D., of 
Omaha, who died suddenly September 29, 1 88 1. 

For many years, in accordance with his early edu- 
cation, he gave an unquestioned adherence to the 
verbal inspiration of the Old and New Testament 
and to the doctrines of the orthodox churches, con- 
sidering these essential to a belief in Christianity. 

Under the enlightened influence of modern dis- 
cussion the foundations of his faith were shaken, 
and he examined the Scriptures diligently to ascer- 
tain what truth was. Gradually curtailing his medi- 
cal practice, he extended his research into the fields 
of history, science and literature, and we here have 
the result, in part, of his labors. Instead of drifting 
into Atheism or Agnosticism, he became, with the 
exercise of the largest liberty, the firmest of be- 
lievers in the sufficiency of Christ's life and precepts 
to give guidance and consolation in this life, and an 
unshaken hope in the future. 

This volume is published as a tribute to the mem- 
ory of its author, with the hope that it may aid 
ethers in solving some of the problems of our exist- 
ence. J. J. M. 

FiSHKiLL-ON-HuDSON, April 2, 1882. 



THE CREATION AND THE 
SCRIPTURE. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



At a very large meeting of clergy and repre- 
sentative men of various Christian Churches of the 
North-West, held in Chicago, November 23d, 1876, 
Mr. Moody was asked, ''Why do EvangeHsts know 
so little of science?" Mr. Moody replied, " Because 
they know something better ;" and the reply was 
accepted without further question or explanation. 

Another delegate inquired, " Is not the line of 
truth to be found in preaching the Gospel, instead 
of preaching about the pretty things in creation — 
pretty flowers, pretty stars, and so on ?" Mr. Moody 
replied, "You have answered yourself;" and this, 
too, seemed satisfactory to the entire assembly. 

Not one of the two thousand delegates and two 
hundred ministers of the Gospel there present 
appeared to remember that the Old Testament had 
said, " Go to the ant ; consider her ways, and be 
wise," ^ or that the New Testament, recording the 

* Prov. vi. 6. 



2 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

words of Christ, twice repeated, had said,* '' Consider 
the liUes of the field, how they grow," that we may 
understand that even " Solomon in all his glory was 
not arrayed like one of these ;" and therefore if 
'* God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, 
and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not 
much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" 

Not one seemed to remember that the inspired 
Psalmist had said, " The heavens declare the glory 
of God ; and the firmament sheweth forth His handy- 
work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto 
night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor 
language, where their voice is not heard." 

If this utterance at Chicago had been the first or 
last of such attempts to belittle accurate study of 
nature, we might excuse it as an oversight of enthu- 
siasm in a special work. 

But this is no anomaly in the history of religion ; 
for there has never been an age in which theology 
did not arrogate to itself the right to resist science, 
from Pope Urban who imprisoned Galileo for as- 
sum.ing the stars to be messengers of God, down to 
the New Jersey Synod and the General Assembly of 
the United States, which forbade a woman to pro- 
claim the Star of Bethlehem from a Presbyterian 
pulpit. 

* Mall. vi. 28. 



PULPIT THEOLOGY AND BIBLE TRUTH. 3 

It is a common occurrence to see in some religious 
newspaper or hear from a pulpit remarks alike 
derogatory to science and scientific men. 

Unfortunately, these detractions as to scientific 
pursuits are called forth because men accustomed t) 
accurate research will not accept a doubtful dogma 
as an incontrovertible truth, or rely on polemic 
pretensions as a firm foundation for faith in God. 

We see, then, there may be a wide distinction 
between pulpit theology and Bible truth, which very 
properly justifies a careful scrutiny. 

If the scientist urges, as he may often do, an 
untenable theory, though based upon real knowl- 
edge of nature, it is for the theologian to obtain the 
same knowledge and prove a better theory, instead 
of rejecting both theory and fact as alike false. 

The same truths of science are common property 
to all ; and surely a teacher of religion, of all others, 
should not reject the study of scientific truth. 

Whatever God has deemed necessary to do, either 
in creation or providence, should not be considered 
as beneath the best intelligence of man to under- 
stand. 

It is the doubtful and often absurd dogmas of 
ignorant presumption which disgust sensible men 
and drive them from church relations, and not the 
simple truth as revealed by God or appHed by Christ. 

Far be it from me to speak lightly of Mr. Moody, 



4 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

or of the two or three thousand delegates and clergy- 
men sitting so humbly at his feet that day for 
instruction ; but such questions and such answers, 
without qualification, are a sneer at the study of 
God in nature, and Pharisaic also. 

Such questions and such answers are sufificient, 
when passing as they did without explanation or 
dissent, to justify the conclusion that the represent- 
ative theologians of the North-West are not friendly 
to the investigation of scientific truths, and there- 
fore are not fit representatives of the Gospel of 
Moses or Christ in this matter. 

I do not believe Mr. Moody or his collabora- 
tors deliberately intended to sneer at science, but 
such was the tenor of their teaching. 

The stars, which we are told fought against Sis- 
era,"^'" were sneered at ; the wisdom of Solomon was 
sneered at ; the beautiful teaching of Christ was 
sneered at ; men studying the stars of heaven and 
their nightly song, or the lilies of the field and their 
daily lesson, were sneered at. 

Perhaps this may be called an extreme case, and 
charity would so hope ; but the sentiment, here so 
formally stated, is heard quite too frcquenth' from the 
pulpit in similar expression ; it is perfectly in keep- 
ing with such ideas of knowledge that the uttcrcrs 

* Jiulg. V. 20. 



RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE BY SCIENCE. 5 

thereof, though clergymen and supposed to be pro- 
fessionally graduated in hermeneutics and pastoral 
theology, should seek their final philosophy from an 
uneducated layman. 

Questions such as these quoted, and answers such 
as those given, and embodied in exercises intended 
to teach just how to preach the Gospel of Christ, 
subject religion to an odium thcologicum that should 
rest on the theologians alone, and not upon religion. 

The errors of opinionated ignorance, whether 
from the pulpit or the pew, should not injure the 
deeper truths upon which those errors are unhappily 
founded. 

Rehgion is almost necessarily judged by its au- 
thorized expounders, and therefore errors of teach- 
ing are more dangerous than private opinions. 

No teacher of religion can afford to sneer at 
science. Without science there would be only a 
theology of ignorance, which all past experience has 
proved to be both bigoted and persecuting. How- 
ever little the teacher may know, he owes that little 
to the studies of his predecessors. 

A true religion may survive after a fashion, even 
in ignorance; but if it would grow and develop, as 
nations grow and develop, it must keep step with 
every advance in knowledge. 

The science of language is, to-day, one of the 
strongholds of religion, and every branch of science 



6 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

and art are outworks that religion cannot afford to 
lose or undervalue. 

If religion is to cover the earth and convert the 
people, it will be done by harmonizing every element 
of influence and encouraging inquiry in every field 
of knowledge. 

If we would save sinners, we must not sneer at 
Gamaliel or scorn the publican, but imitate Christ 
by teaching the one and lifting up the other. 

Mr. Moody, and Mr. Sankey, his co-worker, showed 
by their own operations that though apparently 
absorbed in the spiritual element of their work, they 
did not undervalue the wisdom of men or the ways 
of men in order to insure success in their meetings 
and gain access to the hearts of men. Nor did they 
despise a liberal use of proper machinery to co-ordi- 
nate every department of their work so as to secure 
a proper hearing and a final success. 

The great meetings of Moody and Sankey were 
worked up precisely as great meetings of a worldly 
nature are worked up — by expending money and 
arousing a preliminary interest. 

In the meetings of New York, Philadelphia, Bos- 
ton, and Chicago large sums of money were used for 
this purpose in various ways. Some fifty thousand 
dollars was a preliminary condition for the erection 
of a suitable building, subsidizing ncwspajUM-s. and 
procuring ncccssar}' nott)rict}'. Clcrg\'nicn, ciders. 



MOODY AND SANKEY. 7 

and delegates, from far and near, were enlisted, and 
persuaded to co-operate openly. An usher-in-chief 
was employed to train subordinate ushers, so that 
all should be done decently and in order. Teachers 
were selected and trained for Bible and class meet- 
ings, that all might receive a word in due season. 

Visitors were sent out to call in hearers from the 
wayside and the mansion. 

More than all, as a powerful attraction, from five 
hundred to a thousand singers were drilled to act in 
concert or in bands, to catch the ear with melody. 

This was ail done, and well done : Barnum could 
not have done it better ; and it was wisely done to 
accomplish the desired end. 

But this also illustrates that religion, to be a suc- 
cess, must be so adapted to our nature as to utilize 
every function of the body and every faculty of the 
brain ; and it also illustrates the folly of a merely 
spiritual Christianity undervaluing the everyday 
items and interests of the world at large. 

Religion is a necessary element of human nature, 
and as such has influenced the life and controlled 
the destiny of every nation whose life and destiny 
are known to us. This religion is evinced in its 
standards for human conduct in all the relations of 
social life, and thus necessarily influences its history, 
and sooner or later controls its destiny. 

The spirit of man is so inseparably connected with 



8 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

the Spirit of Deity, that the lower spirit must recog-- 
nize the higher in some practical way expressing de- 
pendence and obedience. 

Mere opinion is not sufficient; but the opinion or 
belief as to Deity must have an intelligent develop- 
ment in life, and tend to righteousness, or it ceases 
to be an intelligent religion. 

The lowest fetichism and the most fully developed 
Christianity are alike in this, that they acknowledge 
and worship a Being superior to man. 

The forms, ceremonies, and creeds by which this 
belief in a superior or Divine Being is manifested 
are matters of instruction and development, and 
every religious development which is superior to 
paganism is obtained by instructing and developing 
the intellect. 

If this instruction is in the line of God's laws, as 
revealed in His ways and in His works, then relig- 
ion will develop in like manner ; and any advance 
in religion must be associated with a corresponding 
advance in social and political science, or it cannot 
be permanent. 

So also, on the other hand, any advance in so- 
cial or poHtical science must be accompanied by a 
like advance in religious sentiment, or degenera- 
tion would soon destroy national strength and in- 
telligence. 

God is tlic common centre of all tliini^s, and must 



LAWS UNCHANGING. 9 

be worshipped as a Unity, by complete union of both 
the spirit and intellect. 

If, having God's word, we refuse to study His ways 
as seen in the world about us, or as may be recorded 
in history ; or if we refuse to study His works as re- 
corded by scientific men — we soon begin to apply 
God's word to establish our own ways : then, neglect- 
ing all revelation by law, we gradually over-estimate 
our own emotions and undervalue the real inspiration 
of truth. 

This dogma takes the place of religion, and an 
opinionated system of belief crowds out the simpler 
truths of God. 

The laws of God as revealed by science, though 
adapted to every phase of advancing civilization, 
are unchanging, and lessons derived from them are 
equally unchanging, and should control and guide 
our devotions as well as our individual relations to 
each other. 

When we fully realize the goodness of God in 
feeding the sparrow, we love the sparrow better, as 
well as God. 

When we understand the structure of the lily, we 
behold how, though it toils not, it is arrayed in more 
beauty than Solomon, and we have advanced in reli- 
gion as well as science. 

Whatever God has seen fit to do, is useful for us 
to know; and whatever law of God is revealed in 



lO THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

nature is a proper guide to well-being or well-doing 
in life. 

If the body is the earthly tenement of an immortal 
soul, any knowledge necessary for the well-being of 
our human nature is also necessary for the well-being 
of the soul, here and hereafter. 

It is impossible that there should be any conflict 
between science and rehgion in this direction. 

The conflict between men who profess to teach 
science, and men who profess to teach religion, is a 
conflict of men and not a conflict of revealed truths ; 
it is a conflict between factions of men, and not be- 
tween God's word as revealed in scripture and His 
works as revealed in nature. 

Science conflicts with nothing but ignorance ; and 
it is only when men go beyond the province of fact 
and seek to expound the reasons thereof, that they 
are liable to differ, or become dogmatic and unrea- 
sonable. 

True science cannot oppose true religion, for a 
truth of God as revealed in nature cannot be opposed 
to, or in conflict with, any other truth. Wlicnever 
men, therefore, assert the authorit}" of mere human 
writings as superior to laws revealed in nature, they 
are affirming a human standard of truth as superior 
to the Divine. 

When a theologian sneers at science because the 
theological opinions of scientific men are adverse to 



CONFLICT IS IN MEN. , II 

his, or even because the facts of science are unfairly- 
used, he manifests both lack of science and lack of 
truth. 

On the other hand, if a scientific man sneers at 
religion because of pedantic dogmatism in the pul- 
pit, he also manifests a lack of religious knowledge 
and scientific precision as well as a lack of charity. 

Theology without sufficient knowledge, and science 
\vithout sufficient religion, retard the progress and 
obstruct the influence of both science and religion, 
by contending about men's theories of God's myste- 
ries, instead of recognizing and agreeing upon the 
truths of God's revelation in religion or science. 

Religion is right feeling toward God, rightly appre- 
hended : science is the knowledge of God as revealed 
in well-established facts in His works. 

The right feeling toward God must be largely in- 
fluenced by the right understanding of God's ways 
and works ; for it is impossible to apprehend God 
intelligently without some knowledge of Him as 
revealed to us, outside of ourselves. 

Nor is it possible to apprehend God honestly, un- 
less we utilize every accessible means of knowledge. 

Therefore, if science is a knowledge of God's works, 
including ourselves, religion is the right application 
of that knowledge, so that we shall co-operate best 
with God's plans, both outside of and within our- 
selves. 



12 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Our own inferences and opinions are valueless and 
deceptive, except as founded upon facts beyond our 
control but within our knowledge. 

It would be utterly impossible to conceive a reliable 
idea of light as utilized by the eye if we could not 
see, or of sound as applied to the ear if we could 
not hear. 

In like manner, every material fact is exterior to 
and independent of the brain, but the brain is so 
constructed as to utiHze an impression of these facts 
and preserve them as knowledge. 

The laws of nature are but the designs of God 
worked out permanently before us, but are often 
revealed to us only so far as we study and learn 
them. 

If we study them carelessly or interpret them ig- 
norantly, the facts and laws themselves remain for 
re-examination, the witness always remaining for 
cross-question and correction. 

Intelligence is given to us by God that we may study 
and discern these truths of creation on a scientific 
basis, just as much as it was given to Adam to gi\'e 
suitable and expressive names to the first animal 
creation. 

If Adam before the fall was an expert zoologist. It 
is hardly becoming us, of a fallen race, to treat lightly 
his accomplishments, cspeciall)' if wc advocate the 
literal rcadinL:' of Genesis. 



EARLY CHURCH FORBADE STUDY. I3 

It would be just as reasonable to discard the eye 
or the ear from common life, as the use of our intel- 
ligence for this life or that which is to come. 

Facts, material truths, the laws of God in nature, 
are God's revealed word to man, and when once 
known, no matter how revealed, become sacred 
scriptures. 

These scriptures, however, after all the care that 
may be bestowed upon them, are but a human con- 
ception of a Divine truth, and expressed in fallible 
and changing language, though the truth itself may 
be infallible and unchanging. 

The facts, however, remaining permanent may be 
re-studied from age to age, until accumulated obser- 
vation corrects all correctible errors of belief, ex- 
pression, or application. 

Thus for ages men failed to understand fully the 
movements of the heavenly bodies, and a proper 
knowledge thereof was retarded for centuries, because 
a false reverence for the written word forbade scien- 
tific investigation of a statement supposed to be 
affirmed in the Bible. 

According to the theology of the day, the Bible 
asserted that the sun rose and set ; therefore it was 
heresy, punishable with death, for any one to affirm 
that the earth revolved around the sun. 

The whole Christian Church of that period united 
in burning the books which advocated the helio- 



14 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

centric theory, and also united in burning men for 
writing the books. 

The mere human verbiage, describing an optimal 
phenomenon, was more sacred to the Church than a 
real knowledge of the laws of God. 

The persecution and the fire failed to silence the 
heavenly witness, which still speaks to us with Divine 
authority; and in these days a man who denies the 
laws of Galileo, Bruno, and Copernicus would be 
deemed well-nigh an idiot, although the same Bible 
reads and teaches the same now as then. 

We thus see, in many respects, even as to vital 
interests, that the most sacred records are subject to 
all the errors of human instrumentality in obtaining 
and recording facts ; much more are such records lia- 
ble to error when they contain mere human opinions 
as to the interpretation and application of the facts, 

We see this by comparing any sacred record 
whether of Jew or Gentile, with itself; we thus find 
that what is written as inspired in one age is re- 
garded quite differently by the same authority in a 
subsequent age. 

The Jewish scriptures are perhaps better guarded 
against error than any other, but we find this plain 
throughout. 

What is declared to be dircctctl by God in one 
age is reversed in another; thus th'wM'ce was allowed 
by Moses, but forbidden by Christ. 



SACRED WRITERS ANTAGONISTIC. 1 5 

It would be easy to multiply instances where there 
is a marked antagonism between the recorded theol- 
ogy of the sacred writers from Moses to Malachi and 
from Matthew to Revelations. 

As God changes not, the only reverent conclusion 
is, that the record contains the errors as well as the 
inspiration of fallible men. 

The record may be honest and according to the 
faith of the writer, but subsequent study must be 
allowed to correct any possible error of human de- 
tail, or sacred scriptures will cease to be a reliable 
repository of Divine truth. 

With the understanding that supposed truths of 
any kind, whether primarily revealed by the word of 
man, or the works of God in nature, are always to 
be the subjects of reverential study for correction or 
confirmation ; (for, as human intelligence develops, 
truths once difficult to understand become easy of 
comprehension ;) the final record of sacred scriptures 
will always be an advance toward fundamental truth, 
and better ideas of God. 

The revelation of this record will thus correspond 
ultimately to the revelation of God's laws, and men 
must believe whether they will or not. 

On the other hand, if the record of sacred scrip- 
tures is held to be a plenary inspiration, every error 
of record, of copying, of translating or printing must 
stand ; and these as well as the superstitious opinions 



l6 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

of an age of barbarism and ignorance must remain 
the Divine standard of all future ages. 

This doctrine was distinctly repudiated by Christ 
when he reversed the law of divorce as enforced by 
Moses,* on the ground that Moses did this because 
of the hardness of men's hearts, but " from the be 
ginning it was not so."'f What Moses directed as an 
inspiration of God for the guidance of His chosen 
people, was declared by Christ, fifteen hundred 
years after, to be a violation of the seventh com- 
mandment, and is so declared now by all Christian 
nations. 

The real basis of science is an admitted ignorance 
and the necessity of study to enlighten that ignor- 
ance ; and this is surely a safer basis for a true con- 
ception and proper views of Deity than a theology 
founded upon a supposed perfection of human 
knowledge and a consequent tendency to be self- 
satisfied without study or question. 

Everything in God's way of working in material 
things is progressive, and the way of His working 
with our intellect also progressive, unless wc counter- 
act it by sclf-rightcousness or wilful ignorance. 

All study of science is based upon the idea that 
wc can learn more ; but ncarh' all dogmas of a 

*■ Dcut, xxiv. I, 2. f Matlhcw v. 32, 3S, 39; xix. 8. 



JEW V. CHRIST. 17 

spiritual kind are based upon the spiritual idea of 
perfect knowledge — at least so far as the dogma is 
concerned. 

The Jews were an apt illustration of this at the 
birth of Christ : they believed their religion as given 
by Moses and the prophets would accomplish, by 
their agency and their dogmas, all that religion could 
accomplish. 

It was run in ruts and grooves of human concep- 
tion, but held to be perfect in action, and sufficient, 
without further development, for all future contin- 
gencies. 

The Saviour they expected was but a climax to 
complete their national grandeur, and a hero to es- 
tablish by conquest the Jewish rule and the Jewish 
religion over the whole earth. 

No wonder they assailed Christ with abuse as a 
heretic when he sought to teach them a purer faith 
and salvation by God's grace, instead of by broad 
phylacteries and long prayer. 

Any theological creed, therefore, formulated by 
human device is not necessaril}^ religion, nor are we 
bound to accept it as a standard of faith or rule of 
life, unless it expresses our intelligent belief. 

So also a mere scientific theory of human device 
is not science, and is not to be urged as such in 
determining matters of religion. 



I8 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

A religious faith, as Paul taught, * should be 
founded upon something we know. 

If we know but little, our faith will be limited 
and simple ; if we know more, our religion and our 
responsibilities will be of a higher grade ; but how- 
ever much we may learn, we can never harm religion 
by learning all there is to be known of truth. 

A religion that involves our eternal existence 
should not be determined by doubtful specula- 
tions, or tabooed as too sacred for further investi- 
gation. 

The religion of an enlightened age is not limited 
to the utterance of a darkened oracle in the holy of 
holies, behind the veil of ceremonials and inaccessible 
to all but a chosen high-priest; but must include 
the Shekinah of the rent veil accessible to both Jew 
and Gentile. 

Whenever a theology renders the knowledge or 
service of God more difficult than it is made by 
Christ, that theology acts as a veil to hide God's 
presence, and uses its creed to hinder rather than 
help His service. 

The ordinances of worship are calculated to be 
helps, not hindrances, to a better life ; and therefore 
they are offered to the sinner at the first stop of his 
religious experience to strengthen him, rather than 

* Ronuins i, xx. 



SPIRITUAL MUST USE MATERIAL. I9 

at the close of life as a deathbed sacrament to exor- 
cise the devil. 

It was this fetich regard for baptism which im- 
pelled Constantine to refuse that ordinance until 
lying on his deathbed, and, as he supposed, beyond 
the power of new temptation and sin. 

Such a theology is no better than idolatry. 

Churches may properly be organized for various 
Christian purposes, but this does not and cannot 
constitute them custodians of God's heritage or 
arbiters of religious knowledge. 

One church may excel another in devotion, or 
spirituality, as it is called ; but this gives it no au- 
thority to think or decide for another. 

Men organized as a church may show more relig- 
ion than the unorganized masses outside of such 
bodies, but this gives the church no authority to 
adopt a Shibboleth of membership and forbid all 
access to Christ except by its use as a password. 

Experience has fully established the fact that a 
theology claiming to be orthodox may be ignorant, 
arrogant, and cruel, and yet defend itself by a plea 
of spiritual infallibility as entitled to control man's 
intellectual nature. 

A spiritual dogma to be respected must admit 
free inquiry^ and avail itself of every attainable 
knowledge of material as well as spiritual things. 

It is permanent facts and established truths only 



20 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

which constitute essential elements of religious be- 
lief ; yet a formulation of such truths, if properly 
used, may be very valuable and profitable in the or- 
ganization and government of churches. 

It is, therefore, necessary to bear constantly in 
mind that a theology founded on creeds and cate- 
chisms, limiting further inquiry, is not necessarily a 
religion founded on unquestionable truths any more 
than speculations or theories of science are scientific 
facts. 

If religion is right feeling toward God as rightly 
appreciated, then science is the right appreciation of 
facts in God's creation and providence ; and thus 
knowledge is the basis of an appreciation that is to 
produce, or rather justify, a right feeling; and it is 
thus, by a knowledge of things that are, we have a 
justifying faith in things that are not. 

Let it therefore be clearly understood in this dis- 
cussion, that theology is not used as synonymous 
with religion, nor speculative theory as science. 

Theology is simply a /ogos, a word, not a law, 
about God ; so also theories in science arc simpl}- 
discussions about science. 

Theology may be right religion, or it may be 
wrong; speculations in science may be right or they 
may be wrong. 

The theology of the Incjuisilion was wrong con- 



LEIBNITZ — NEWTON. 21 

turics ago, and the theology of excommunication is 
wrong now. 

The theology of ignorance was wrong then and is 
wrong now. 

The theology of individual liberty in Christ was 
right then and is right now. 

These facts do not imply that theologies or creeds 
are unprofitable in religion, or speculative theories 
unprofitable in science, but that in religion as well 
as science it is our duty to examine for ourselves 
and " hold fast to that which is good :" a duty which 
can only be performed by intelligent study, for, after 
all, it is only by man's intelligence that God is re- 
vealed, or according to the celebrated saying of St. 
Chrysostom in regard to the Shekinah, or the ark of 
the testimony, " the true Shekinah is man." 

Leibnitz at first rejected the law of gravitation, 
because it seem.ed to him to be derogatory to God's 
freedom of action ; Newton, on the contrary, believed 
it one of the most perfect possible demonstrations 
of Deity. 

Had Newton refused investigation on the same 
ground as Leibnitz, the world would have waited a 
long time in ignorance of one of the most perfect 
and beautiful developments ever known in religion 
or science. 

Fortunate it was for religion as well as science 
that Leibnitz and Newton lived where theologies 



22 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

could not arrest the study of Christian truth as re- 
vealed in science, by a scientific man, without a theo- 
logical license to declare " ex cathedra" the limit of 
inspired truth. 

If the teacher of religion would work in his high 
calling with the conscientious study and beautiful 
simplicity of Newton, and investigate truth every- 
where with that faith and trust in God which accepts 
all His works as very good, he would soon be relieved 
from that embarrassment which results from defend- 
ing creeds and catechisms as infallible interpreters of 
the religion he professes. 

The vote of a Protestant council Is no more au- 
thority as a question of principle than the vote of a 
Roman Catholic council or a Jewish Sanhedrim. 

The religion that guides us must result from the 
best use of our best faculties of body and mind in 
every department of creation. 

We see God's universal and impartial love in the 
sun shining upon the good and the bad, and the wit- 
ness of His unvarying kindness in the rain falling 
alike upon the just and the unjust ; but if we would 
sec more of God in these evidences than the heathen 
do, we must study them more and learn more of the 
universal law by which God as the author of good- 
ness is revealed. 

Wc look upon the heavens, and even the unaided 
eye can see wonderful m\'sterics ; even the child can 



PERSECUTOR AND PERSECUTED. 23 

say, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star;" but if we would 
know more than the child, how God in wisdom made 
the stars, we must not be satisfied with gazing, but 
learn somewhat of the mystery as revealed to re- 
search and somewhat of the twinkle as seen by sci- 
ence : then we can join with meaning and without 
mockery in that anthem of the heavenly host forever 
singing as they shine, " The hand that made us is 
Divine." 

Let us then bear in mind the difference between 
theology and religion, nor lose our love for the 
Divine essence because of coarse and repulsive cov- 
ering. 

It was theology, not religion, commenced and con- 
tinued the long line of Christian persecution from 
the time of Constantine to the last fulmination of a 
Protestant Assembly. 

Alas ! it was too often true that mere dogma in- 
cited the martyr to suffer, as well as the persecutor 
to inflict the suffering ; and thus the religion of love 
is made a background of offence both to the oppres- 
sor and the oppressed. 

This is worse than paganism in one way ; for the 
pagan made the temple of God and the altar a 
refuge from the avenger, whereas Christians make 
the temple and the altar a hunting-ground for heresy. 

This continued persecution for opinion's sake, 
this conflict of catechisms and councils, this putting 



24 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Up an infallible standard in one generation to be 
pulled down by its own children in the next, not 
only proves that councils are not inspired to deter- 
mine creeds, but that neither councils nor churches 
should control the acquisition of knowledge. 

The foundation rock of religion must ever be free- 
dom of individual opinion and the right to individual 
growth in knowledge and grace. Any church or 
creed interfering with this right cannot be of God. 

I know of no instance in the history of mankind 
where science has persecuted either ignorance or 
religion ; but over fifty millions of human beings, 
slaughtered by the professed Church of Christ for 
opinion's sake, are victims of persecution along all 
the centuries for sixteen hundred years. Excommu- 
nication for heresy is rampant even yet. 

Laws of advancing civilization no longer allow the 
Church to forbid young love its marriage rite, the 
young babe its maternal care, or the dead body its 
burial, as a punishment for heresy. 

It is not uncharitable to affirm that when an or- 
dained minister of the Gospel, standing before the 
people, claiming to be called God's messenger, be- 
comes a common huckster of slang about scientific 
pursuits and a retailer of malicious gossip about 
scientific men because they are unbelievers in his 
creed, that he would also burn their bodies if the 
law of the land would allow it to be done. 



INTOLERANCE— JAMES— JOHN— PAUL. 2 5 

It is not an unusual thing to hear scientific men 
abused as atheists by professed teachers of rehgion 
who have not studied the works they condemn, or 
else they are guilty cf gross falsehood in misrepre- 
senting them. 

The hearts of men are the same now as when, 
eighteen hundred years ago, James and John would 
call down fire on a village of Samaria because the 
inhabitants refused to receive Christ,* and Paul 
would have the coppersmith rewarded according to 
the evil he had done.f 

These things, as before stated, are not chargeable 
to rehgion, but theology. 

Christ rebuked James and John, and would un- 
doubtedly have rebuked Paul for intolerance had he 
been present. 

For a thousand years, during which the Church 
had control of life, learning, liberty, and conscience? 
it was a hotbed of shameful ignorance and brutal 
persecution, without, after all, securing unity of 
faith or peace and harmony within its own borders. 

For a thousand years — yea, until now, councils 
and assemblies exercising the Divine prerogative of 
judgment on the Christianity of men are neverthe- 
less opposed to each other in judgment, without 
either consistency or charity. 

* Luke ix. 54. f 2. Timothy iv. 14. 



CHAPTER I. 
Unwritten Divine Laws. 

Theology too often acts as if science originated 
with man, and tlie assertion of physical facts were 
but assumptions of his own brain ; whereas a 
physical fact, though but recently brought to man's 
comprehension, is in some way the result of laws 
operating through all time. 

The law of gravitation, discovered and applied by 
Newton, was not a law of Newton to cease its oper- 
ation when he died or to be perverted by his errors 
of judgment or imperfect understanding; but was a 
law of God for all time, unchangeable in its relations, 
and to be applied with assured faith by man in every 
condition of hfe. 

Engineering, architecture, navigation, and almost 
every mechanic art soon became subordinate to this 
law and the certainty and uniformity of its action. 

On the other hand, the emission theory of light 
advocated by Newton was as universally accepted two 
hundred years ago as the theory of gravitation, and 
is now universally rejected. 

Time and rc-cxaniination, with increased knowl- 
edge of natural laws, have conllrmcd the theory of 



NATURAL LAWS INSPIRED. 2/ 

gravitation as Divine and rejected the emission the- 
ory of light as human. 

Light is clearly emitted and is a fact, now as then ; 
but the law of its action is now correctly learned. 

The law of expansion and condensation of steam 
was a law of God long before it was understood and 
utilized by Watt and others in navigation, or by 
Stephenson and others in railroads and mechanic 
arts. 

The old-time song of the tea-kettle by the fireside, 
when understood by the human mind and formu- 
lated in language, has changed the commerce of 
nations, strengthened the structure of society, 
developed the powers and genius of men, and im- 
proved the spiritual relations of the entire race. 
Thus the law of gravitation and the law of steam 
became inspired and revealed truth of God for the 
guidance of men. 

The confidence and trust we have in these laws 
and the record of their operations are not founded 
simply on the written word or authority of those 
who discovered and recorded them, but upon a con- 
dition of things; which condition is just as open 
to investigation now as then, and will be for all 
time. 

The Divine authority of a law of God, thus known 
and recorded, thus tested and applied, transcends, 
as a mere matter of credence, the authority of a 



28 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

recorded miracle long since performed, or a mere 
verbal utterance as long since revealed. 

The miracle and the utterance depend entirely on 
the authority and accuracy of the record, the facts 
being entirely beyond a reinvestigation ; whereas 
the laws of nature and the facts of science are ever 
open to question and answer: a process which 
consigns bigotry, superstition, witchcraft, demoniac 
possession, spiritual communication, spiritual ma- 
terialization, and all dogmas of mere belief and 
emotion, to the realms of the unknown or untrue, 
but enshrines the scriptures of law as holy oracle 
and unavoidable will of God. 

The same is true of magnetism, electricity, heat, 
and all other forces of nature, now so thoroughly 
identified with our daily life that we too often cease 
to realize our dependence upon them or our obliga- 
tions to study and obey them. 

A knowledge of these forces in the material world 
and the laws by which they act has taught, and still 
by daily warning teaches us, that a long list of acci- 
dents and widespread disease arc not special visita- 
tions of God for sin, but a necessary penalty for 
ignorance, carelessness, or presumption. 

The collision at sea, the foundering on a rock, the 
exploded boiler, when causing death, are violations 
of the sixth coniniandmcnt. 

The barometer, the chronometer, the compass, the 



SPECIAL JUDGMENTS. 29 

steam-gauge, instruments for determining latitude 
and longitude, etc:, are religious truths, speaking the 
language of inspiration ; and a failure to know their 
use or a failure to use them is a worse sin than 
ignorance of creeds or heresy in theological dogma. 

It is the broken rail, the misplaced switch, the 
rotten bridge, the weakened or oversteamed boiler, 
and the neglected compass that send unfortunate 
travellers to destruction, and not a special judgment 
of God ; for the accident involves both the righteous 
and the wicked, the just and the unjust, and occurs 
alike on week-day or Sunday. 

When the uninformed or reckless miner rashly or 
ignorantly opens his safety-lamp in the foul air of 
the mine, it is the explosion of carburetted hydrogen, 
and not the avenging angel of the Lord, which pro- 
duces the awful results. 

It was the certain operation of a general law of 
which he was or might have been well informed, and 
not a special judgment from which he had no way 
of escape. 

God never plans the affliction of His people, nor 
does He hasten the death of the wicked by special 
agencies beyond their knowledge and control. 

The young man was not born blind for his own sin 
or the sin of his parents ;"'^" and the tower of Siloam,f 

* John ix. 3. f Luke xii. 4. 



30 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

as well as the rain* falls alike upon the just and the 
unjust. 

God does not exempt His professed followers from 
the effects of violated law, nor does He violate His 
own laws to work out mysterious or special results 
for their benefit. 

The epidemic which decimates an encamped army 
is not a destroying angel of war sent to fight an 
enemy, but a necessary consequence of filth, dissipa- 
tion, and exposure of camp Hfe, for which the proper 
remedy is not formal prayers or pharisaic fasting, 
but the Sanitary Commission and the Sisters of 
Mercy. 

" The pestilence that walketh in darkness and 
wasteth at noonday" in city and country, desolating 
the hearts and homes of humanity, is the result of 
violated laws of life, and must be remedied by sani- 
tary regulations. 

Slow disease is constantly produced and developed 
by idleness, indulgence, intemperance, fashion, and 
bad habits of life and broken laws of health, even 
with professing Christians who arc perfectly satisfied 
with their church professions, and so-called Christian 
experiences, higher life, and orthodox belief, as 
sufficient testimonials of a correct conscience and a 
true faith. 

* Matthew V. 45. 



SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 3I 

The curse of fashion, filth, and self-indulgence is 
not to be removed by groanings of the spirit or 
penitential enchantments, or prevented except by 
penitential reform. 

The scavenger, with spade, broom, and water, 
must cleanse the streets, the alleys, and the houses ; 
aye, and if need be, the people also until Christianity 
can boast at least the human virtue of cleanliness. 

Idleness must yield to industry. Indulgence 
must yield to temperance, and a right life must ac- 
company religious creeds. 

Let humanity, whether heretic or orthodox, un- 
derstand that every excess, whether in eating or 
drinking, every hot-bed of dirt about our persons or 
our homes, every dissipation of mind or body, are 
mortgages on our natural life, to run with compound 
interest until foreclosed by death, in spite of future 
fasting and prayer. 

The joy of believing can never cancel the conse- 
quences of sinning, nor any hope for the life to come 
counteract the penalty of violated law in the present 
life. 

It is safe to affirm that the science of medicine, 
by revealing God's law as to pure air and cleanliness 
alone, has materially modified the fatality of those 
terrible epidemics which once desolated the cities of 
Christian nations, and still scourge cities where they 
fail to enforce sanitary rules. 



32 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

In 134S the black plague carried off eighty thou- 
sand persons at Avignon in a few months. One of 
these victims was Laura De Sade, immortalized by 
Petrarch.* 

Before the introduction of vaccination in Europe, 
five hundred thousand persons perished of small-pox 
in a single year; yet when science found a pre- 
ventive, theology denounced it as interfering with 
the will of God. 

In 161 1 pestilence destroyed two hundred thou- 
sand persons in Constantinople ; in 1625, thirty-six 
thousand in London; in 1632, sixty thousand at 
Lyons; in 1656, four hundred thousand at Naples; 
in 1720, sixty thousand at Marseilles; in 1773, eigh- 
ty thousand at Bassora, in Persia. In 1799 three 
thousand persons died daily in Barbary for a time, 
and two hundred and forty-seven thousand perished 
in Fez. 

These are but items of modern times, and are ex- 
ceeded by the like destruction in earlier ages, when 
even less was known as to the laws of life and 
health. 

The fearful famines in Asia, which so often end in 
disease and death, arise almost entirely from a neg- 
lect of well-known laws of agriculture and meteo- 
rology. 

* " Hislory of Our Tiuu-s," p. 93. J. McCarthy. 



FAMINES. 33 

It is estimated that sixty millions — more than the 
entire population of the United States of America — 
perished in the famine recently prevailing in North- 
ern China, and this not only because entire regions 
neglected proper irrigation, but because they raised 
only opium, ^ and trusted for grain to other prov- 
inces, now also parched. 

Sufficient reservoirs of water and suitable irriga- 
tion during drought is the rational remedy for a 
rainless famine in the East, and one such system of 
English supply in India is worth all the Buddhist 
prayer-mills in the land. In like manner let Chris- 
tian cities neglect a supply of good water to every 
family, and allow the sewerage of every house to 
swelter and ferment in every door-yard and filtrate 
into every well, and pestilence will spread its death 
pall over such cities and houses as surely as in pagan 
lands, in spite of the fasting and formal prayers 
of pious men — if men can be pious without being 
clean. 

But we need not quote the pestilence which broods 
in the poisoned air of crowded cities, and finding 
oftentimes victims in honest poverty as well as in 



* The British Government produced opium as a monopoly in 
India, and sold it at public sale in Calcutta, thus stimulating the 
trade to increase the revenue, and took eight hundred millions of 
dollars from China for this drug during the last century. 



34 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

dirt and dissipation ; we need not quote the famine 
of rainless regions where ignorance suffers aHke with 
neglect ; we need not quote the catastrophe by land 
or sea which hurls confiding travellers from life to 
sudden death without warning, to prove that the 
ways of God are not special or mysterious in these 
matters, but are so plain " that the wayfaring man, 
though a fool, need not err therein." 

If the innocent and ignorant perish by these provi- 
dences of God, it is because they ignorantly or oth- 
erwise subject themselves to the same influences 
which destroy the careless or sinful, and not because 
of a special providence. 

When Pompeii was rebuilt on the lava founda- 
tion of a previous eruption, ten righteous men with- 
in its walls would not have saved it, nor would ten 
thousand wicked ones have increased its danger 
from a subsequent outburst of the volcano. 

The law of burning lava is inexorable, and the 
goodness of God in all of these cases is not in spe- 
cial providence, but in allowing us to understand 
these inexorable laws of His creation and provi- 
dence, and to use them as ministers of mercy. 

Steam governed by law is the angel of industry 
and progress, but used recklessly or ignorantly is a 
demon of destruction. 

Tlie alcohol of connncrcc, in the various forms, 
entering into a thousand useful arts and industries, 



WEALTHY INEBRIATE. 35 

IS deliberately perverted and patronized for the 
production of disease and death, by thousands 
who sneer at the science which forbids its use as 
a beverage, and whose souls rest in peace on some 
church creed, in contented ignorance or wilful big- 
otry. 

The sixty thousand graves filled annually in the 
United States alone by victims of intemperance are 
not all from the huts and hovels of the degraded and 
destitute, whose hard lot of privation and penury 
compels them to live in a miasm they cannot avoid, 
and incur disease from which they cannot escape ; 
but these victims of intemperance come largely from 
mansions of wealth, where men live in ease and afflu- 
ence and enter into temptations and progress to 
ruin from choice. 

The bleared eye and bloated body of the wealthy 
inebriate going down cheerily to a drunkard's doom, 
are the slow but sure witnesses of broken laws, 
blasting a life which might be beautiful and useful ; 
they are witnesses, as surely as the sunken eye and 
famished frame of the friendless sot who dies starv- 
ing in his debauchery. 

Wealth nor friends can avert, resources of nature 
cannot resist, remedies of medicine cannot rescue, 
body or brain that persists in the use of intoxicating 
drinks. 

Dives luxuriating in his palace, and Lazarus suffer- 



36 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

ing at his gate, are in this, as at the day of judgment, 
on equal footing. 

The broken law exacts the penalty, and there is 
no vicarious atonement in this Hfe, whatever a trust- 
ing faith may hope for in a life to come. 

Step by step, nature kindly warns the victim of 
danger incurred, and thus entreats him to pause ere 
it be too late. 

The sickness of an occasional debauch is followed 
by disordered digestion, until disease as well as 
drinking becomes a habit : " The horse-leech still 
cries. Give ! give !" until both mind and body suffer 
fiery torments, which Revelations affirm are but a 
prelude to that flame which even eternity cannot 
quench. 

Sixty thousand victims to intemperance each year 
is the actual count in this land of Christian privilege 
alone. 

Add to this the victims of strong drink and opium 
elsewhere, and who can count the final footing up of 
this awful harvest of voluntary woe? 

Add to these the suffering, the disease, the despair 
of friends, the children inheriting a craving appetite 
or incipent disease, and even imagination fails to 
conceive the sorrow and crime that follows the vio- 
lation of this one law of life. 

If theology taught more the scientific certainty of 
these results, it would add greatly to the influence of 



SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 37 

a teaching which refers only to the uncertainty of a 
life to come. 

The logic of science and religion is the same, and 
cause and effect follow with the same inevitable se- 
quence, in the moral and spiritual as in the material 
world. 



CHAPTER II. 
Influence of the Past. 

Such and a multitude of similar facts teach us, 
that the unwritten laws of God, which science seeks 
to reveal, are woven into the web and woof of our 
daily life and future destiny, although long unre- 
corded, and all knowledge of their first discovery 
and gradual application forgotten. 

Phoenicia and her dependent colonies passed away 
centuries ago, but the alphabet we inherit from her 
literature prints our Bible, and the ships we inherit 
from her commerce carry it to evangelize the world. 

Greece is a memory of the past, but the science of 
her philosophy, of her beauty, and her art, which 
gave her glory and grandeur, remains our inherit- 
ance. The language of her schools furnished the 
Bible for centuries to Africa and Asia, and Jesus and 
his disciples quoted from it as authority for the 
New Dispensation. 

It was the language in which the Gospel of Jesus 
was written and in which Paul addressed the men of 
Athens and wrote to the churches of Asia. 

It is the scientific study of Greek manuscripts 



MAHOMET — rERSECUTED. 39 

which is age by age giving to us the corrected teach- 
ing of the entire apostoHc and patristic church. 

Yet theologians still tell us " they know some- 
thing better !" 

The " common law" of human rights and liberties, 
recorded in India and Egypt, but revised in early 
Rome, is to-day the '^ common law" of the civilized 
world, though Egypt, India, and Rome have relapsed 
into paganism, or paganism half-Christianized. 

It was the study of literature, philosophy, and 
science by early followers of Mahomet, more than 
the learning or the desire of the then dominant 
Church of Rome, that developed the intellect of 
man for a thousand years, until a great reform in 
Europe became possible. 

Then intelligence, instead of bigotry and brute 
force, became the right arm of religion, and heresy 
ceased to peril life ; then twisting of joints, crush- 
ing of feet in iron boots, starvation in filthy dun- 
geons, burning fagots, tearing the flesh with red- 
hot pincers, were no longer available arguments of 
a spiritual church for the salvation of souls. 

Burning of books for heresy continued longer 
than burning of bodies, and it was ignorance rather 
than care which preserved the Bible with other 
literary manuscripts from destruction. 

It is often asserted that the Church of Rome 
preserved science, and especially literature, philos- 



40 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

ophy, and religion, with a jealous custody from 
vandal hands: the truth is that the Romish Church, 
possessing temporal power, and representing nearly 
all there then was of Christianity, instead of cher- 
ishing knowledge or the spirit of scientific study, 
crushed out as far as possible all knowledge that 
did not concur in her aggrandizement or obey her 
will. 

At an early period of this gathering darkness in 
Europe the followers of Mahomet were students of 
science and philosophy, and but for the protection 
of Moslem power and the consequent return of lite- 
rary pursuits to Europe with Moslem progress, 
knowledge would have been held in abeyance, the 
Reformation retarded perhaps for centuries, and the 
Bible remain for ages more in the monasteries, con- 
cealed by cloistered churchmen. 

In the Arab's hand the dying embers of smoth- 
ered literature were revived by the Arab's breath, 
and eventually became the blazing torch by which 
Luther saw the long-lost Bible, and was enabled to 
unclasp its long-locked lids, and read from its pages 
to an inquiring age the Gospel of Jesus the Son of 
God. 

It was the unconquerable law of ev^olution in na- 
ture that finally triumphed over the tyranny of a 
church claiming Divine authority to interpret God's 
word, and, as some do even yet, Divine authorit}' 



MAHOMET AND ROMISH CHURCH. 4I 

to forbid men a better knowledge of God's laws as 
revealed in nature. 

The right of man to think and believe for the 
salvation of his soul was then, as it were, flashed 
back upon Europe from the scymitar of the Sara- 
cen. 

The son of the bondwoman rescued the child of 
promise, and the sword of the spirit is again tem- 
pered with Divine love. 

The religion of Mahomet was, in its beginning, a 
pure monotheism, and as such was a reformation 
from that of Moses ; but, like the religion of Moses, 
it failed to become even a background for the re- 
ligion of Jesus, mainly because it became a church 
militant instead of a church progressive with civil- 
ization. 

Learning and religion were alike tools of state- 
craft and ambition until knowledge as well as re- 
ligion became a slave rather than a guide to man. 

In spite of its corruptions, the religion of Ishmael 
has maintained its hold on the heritage of Isaac for 
over a thousand years, and even during the decline 
of its spiritual power has preserved not only its 
spiritual strength, but has spread and gained more 
by its missionaries than by its warriors. 

Over forty millions to-day obey Victoria as their 
empress, but worship Mahomet as the prophet of 
God; and the same fact is seen throughout Asia and 



42 . THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Africa. Islamism has spread into China, and in Asia 
and Africa has maintained itself side by side with 
Christian missions, and often with superior success. 

In Africa whole tribes of fetich-worshippers have 
accepted the Koran ; in Japan eight millions accept 
the Koran. 

The missionaries of Mahomet are everywhere 
throughout the East, and the sword of Mahomet 
still afflicts Christian pilgrims as they visit the holy 
shrine of their Saviour. 

May we not be allowed to believe that even Is- 
lamism in its earlier faith may have been, and even 
yet may again be, a possible pioneer, an entering 
wedge to open up a pantheistic paganism to the be- 
lief in one God, which the theological doctrine of a 
Triune God so often fails to do? May we not hope 
that a more liberal Christianity will take up these 
half-converted pagans, and, without confusing their 
half-developed minds with a theological Jesus, teach 
them the simple truth of Jesus as revealed in the 
Fatherhood of God — at least until a heathen intel- 
lect is sufficiently educated to understand the differ- 
ence between a Trinitarian and a Pantheist. 

We thus see that error as well as truth may spread 
by preaching; and this fact should convince us that 
to teach an intelligent man religion, we should teach 
him all there is to know of God in science as well as 
tlicology. 



BUDDHA. 43 

In like manner the religion of Buddha springing 
from Brahmanism, as Christianity did from Mosaism, 
began five or six hundred years before the Christian 
era, and is to-day sending more missionaries and 
making more converts than Christianity; spreading 
also over a greater extent of country and converting 
more followers. 

It has done this not by persecution or by force of 
arms, but by preaching the gospel of Buddha, and 
showing a way, false though it be, to deliverance 
from evil. 

Driven out of India, the land of its birth, as 
Christianity was driven out of Judea and Asia long 
after it had been established and flourishing, its 
devoted missionaries have spread it over Ceylon, 
Burmah, China, Japan, Tartary, Thibet, Central 
Asia, Siberia, and even Swedish Lapland, until 
nearly five hundred millions of our race live and die 
in the hope and faith of Gautama, their Saviour. 

All these religionists of Mahomet, Gautama, or 
other false faiths, are earnest devotees, believing 
their religion inspired by God and their own salva- 
tion secured by their faith and practice as they have 
been taught. 

If such fruits are borne by the green tree of 
infancy in pagan thought and development, what 
might we not hope from a better culture and a like 
simple faith in the mature tree of intelligence, un- 



44 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

encumbered by bigotry or superstition and unhin- 
dered by heresy-hunters in the garden of the Lord ? 
— a practice introduced by Satan and adopted by 
too many of the rehgions of all subsequent times. 

It is the inspiration of intelligence and not the 
inspiration of ignorance that will win upon the intel- 
ligence of men and bind their consciences or lead the 
race in progressive civilization. 

If we grope in ignorance when we can grow In in- 
telligence, and grovel in darkness when we can walk 
in light, we will be without answer or excuse when 
finally called upon to account for our stewardship. 

If we would live with honor and profit, we must 
accept truth whenever and wherever revealed or re 
corded. 

The maxim of Confucius in its negative form, 
*' Whatsoever you would not that men should do 
unto you, that do not unto them," and the same 
maxim by Zoroaster in its positive form, '' Whatso- 
ever you would that men should do unto you, that 
do unto them," was as much an inspired rule of life 
to ancient China and Persia as it was when re-en- 
forced by Jesus five hundred years later. 

The maxim was the same, its truth and efiicacy 
the same ; but there was not until then a surrounding 
civilization, a fulness of time, to apply it to all creeds 
and all people. 

Another great truth applied by Josus, that the 



SUN AND RAIN. 45 

sun and rain were blessings to all alike and were wit- 
nesses of God's love and goodness to all, was not a 
revelation to Jews only, or first made known to that 
generation. 

The witness of the sun began with the first ap- 
pearance of its rays through chaotic gloom, and the 
witness of the rain began when its showers first 
watered the earth. 

It is the goodness of God thus manifested, which 
Paul taught the Romans,* "leadeth to repentance." 

It is the love of God thus manifested, as revealed 
to all, which Jesus taught as proof of the universal 
Fatherhood of God. 

To aflirm that such witnesses and such blessings, 
secured to all alike by eternal and universal law, can 
be controlled and measured out by the petitions of 
men, however self-consecrated or holy, is but to fos- 
silize a pagan superstition as the evolution of a per- 
fect faith. 

The ancient pagan had his rain enchanters and 
enchantments ; and David, the Prophet, Priest, and 
King of Israel, hung seven of Saul's family on the 
same principle. 

The modern pagan has these enchantments still, 
and relies on their use as hopefully and trustfully as 
modern Christians do on their formal prayers, long 

* Romans ii. 4. 



46 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

orations, and pious platitudes, though the pagan 
does not know that he thus violates the teaching of 
Jesus. 

The teachings of Jesus were so precise as to the 
equal and universal application of God's laws to ma- 
terial things, that it is hard to understand how intel- 
ligent minds can believe that mere mortal prayer 
can change or arrest the operation of a law of all 
creation and instituted for all time, in order to ac- 
commodate man's fallen estate and temporary de- 
sire. 

The teaching of Jesus was so precise in confining 
prayer to the closet as a personal communion with 
God, and forbidding it as public worship in the syn- 
agogue as well as in the street to be seen of men, 
that it is hard for true reverence to understand how 
ministers can make a merit of long prayers in the 
pulpit, and how other professors do not merit the 
rebuke of Jesus to the Pharisees for thus assuming 
a personal influence with God which would render 
a prayer more effectual from their lips than from 
the lips of a publican. 

And yet we constantly hear men commended for 
being gifted in prayer — a gift of grace not men- 
tioned by Paul when he enumerated other spiritual 
gifts.* 

* 1 Corimhians xii, i-io. 



SPECIAL PRAYER. 47 

Notwithstanding this beHef in the potency of 
prayer in controlHng material laws, and especially in 
thwarting the Devil, the same theology which holds 
to such prevailing power with God also believes as 
equally true that the Devil, who is supposed to 
curse instead of pray, possesses a controlling power 
over material laws equal to, and often superseding, 
the power of God. 

Hence the necessity of special intercession on the 
part of God's people and special interference on the 
part of God Himself to maintain His own honor 
and protect His followers. 

In the matter of witchcraft, pestilence, heresy, 
etc., the Devil seems to have triumphed for genera- 
tions, in spite not only of finite prayers, but in spite 
of Divine special interference ; and theology re- 
sorted to burning, hanging, drowning, and torture 
as necessary accessories to perfect a Divine purpose 
to purify the church. 

It was the organized church which kept up for 
generations a belief in ghosts, witches, and demoniac 
possessions, and various other superstitions supposed 
to be torturing the soul of man ; and a like belief 
in charms, relics of holy saints and holy things, and 
even the repetition of certain texts as amulets to 
outwit Satan. 

The special providence which causes the lightning 
to strike a Sabbath-breaker's haystack, or burn a 



48 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Sabbath-breaker's house, or sink a Sabbath-breaker's 
boat, is of the same pagan parentage and must give 
way to a better knowledge of Divine providence. 

For centuries sailors would not commence a voy- 
age on Friday for fear of disaster ; it was the Devil's 
day; and the same superstition influenced lands- 
men, and does to some extent even yet. 

Friday is still a hangman's day. 

How many would dare to be married on Friday 
even now? 

A thousand similar superstitions have thrived in 
the midst of churches as religious doctrine, and when 
they were finally dispelled it was not because the 
church taught a better theology, but because science 
taught a better religion. 

The domain of material law is not the domain for 
spiritual intercession, and however much scientific 
study may enable us to profit by and apply these 
laws to our benefit or God's glory, they remain the 
same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 

Denuding the earth of its forests and wasting the 
soil by work without culture will cause rainless sea- 
sons, destructive floods, and wasting famine, though 
all Christendom joined in prayer to the contrary. 

Prayer to God must be in the line of His laws, and 
not the line of man's fallible will ; it must also be in 
the domain of man's intellectual and spiritual expe- 
rience. 



STUDY OF NATURE LEADS TO RELIGION. 49 

Our spirits commune with God spiritually, but we 
commune with God in nature by knowledge of and 
obedience to His laws as revealed in nature ; and 
the more we know of God intellectually, the better 
we can commune with Him spiritually. 

This spirit of communing with God spiritually and 
studying God intelligently will lead us to accept 
truth as a revelation of God, under all forms and 
under all circumstances, and honor all efforts for a 
better belief and a better life, though they are but 
kindling sparks of the perfect light. 

Who can decipher how much Brahma, Buddha, 
Zoroaster, Confucius, Socrates, Plato, and other 
heathen philosophers have done to prepare the 
world for the advent of Jesus? — how much they, 
and even Mahomet, are doing now to fallow the soil 
of humanity for the final harvest of peace and love? 

The patience, zeal, self-sacrifice, and devotion of 
heathen philosophers have often been so noble and 
Christ-like that the God who inspired their goodness 
should receive the glory ; and the religion which ac- 
cepts a similar philosophy as part of its essential 
belief should openly profit by the example, and 
credit it to God instead of paganism. 

It is not now believed that Seneca, though con- 
temporaneous with Paul, was ever a convert to 
Christianity, or received any of his rehgious beliefs 
from apostolic or other Christian sources : he was 



50 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

literally a heathen philosopher ; and yet his philoso- 
phy of religion^ except in acquaintance with Christ, 
differed but little from that of Paul. 

The writings of the Roman philosopher in a 
pantheistic age defended the unity of God ; in an 
age of luxury and dissipation he advocated good 
morals and a right life ; in an age of materialism he 
defended the immortality of the soul. The sweet- 
ness and beauty of his life, and his writings on the 
unity of God, to be worshipped spiritually and with- 
out sacrifice ; the relation of man to God, and man 
to man, are so like those of the apostle, that after 
Christianity superseded paganism a legend grew up 
that Paul and Seneca were intimate friends, and 
fourteen epistles are still extant purporting to have 
passed between the apostle and the philosopher, 
and were long believed to be authentic, though now 
admitted to be spurious. " We are members of one 
body ; should the hands harm the feet, or the eyes 
the hands?" was first written by Seneca In defence 
of personal purity, and afterwards repeated by Paul. 
To reject such proofs of God's presence in the mind 
of Gentiles before the Christian era, is to reject the 
government of an infinite God over the Gentile 
world. 



CHAPTER III. 
Intelligence and Science Aids to Religion. 

It was the mistake of allowing ignorant in- 
tolerance instead of intelligence to rule which lost 
so much of true religion to the early church. In 
less than four hundred years after the promulgation 
Df the gospel of peace, although the church had 
undisputed authority both temporal and spiritual, 
Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome, three great 
centres of ecclesiastical development and ambition, 
became also centres of Christian contention and 
conflict. Colleges, councils, and governments pro- 
fessing the religion of Jesus were vying with each 
other in burning books and also in burning men 
and women for reading them ; until the very nurse- 
ries of religion, as established by the apostles and 
early fathers were torn by contending creeds, and 
men were glad to seek protection under the Turkish 
scymitar and adopt the Moslem faith to escape the 
worse religion of persecution and strife. 

So far as men can now judge, it was well the 
scymitar of Ishmael swept over the heritage of Isaac, 
as an apparent agency to save it from a more brutal 
theology. 



52 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Monotheism, the real germ of any true reHgion, 
was almost extinguished by the quarrels and creeds 
of the dying churches of Asia. The personality and 
being of God the Father was almost forgotten in 
contentions concerning the personality and ofifice of 
Christ ; and to determine the personality and pater- 
nal ox filio que procession of the Holy Ghost, was of 
more importance than to '' do justly, and to love 
mercy, and walk humbly before God."^ Christ was 
rejected as a Saviour until polemic zealots could de- 
termine the proper proportion of divine and human 
nature engaged in his mission ; and the influence of 
the Holy Spirit was warded from the hearts of men 
until it could be definitely settled whether it came 
from the Father alone, or from both Father and Son. 
Liberty of Christian thought and liberty of Christian 
life had been banished from the church on the 
ground of securing church unity and Christian fel- 
lowship. But no license of thought, no liberty of 
life, in regard to religion could have brought so sore 
an affliction upon the church as these inhuman at- 
tempts to secure unity by stretching Christian it}' 
upon the Procrustean bed of Pharisaic ignorance 
and pride. 

Knowledge and liberty, banished from the Church 
of Rome, were welcomed by the Arab chief as a 

* Micah vi. 8. 



ISLAMISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 53 

gift of God, and in the soil of the conqueror grew 
into new hfe. In a hundred years from the Hegira 
the Koran was substituted for creeds from Samar- 
cand to Seville, and the muezzin call of '■^ Allah 
Akbar^' " God is great," was heard from the banks 
of the Indus to the summit of the Pyrenees; astron- 
omy, natural science, literature and art, banished 
from the temples of Rome, developed in the tent 
of Ishmael ; and afterwards, encouraged by a purer 
faith, returned to its earlier home, and there re- 
kindled the fires of religion on the altars of an 
almost expiring hope. The Bible, long concealed 
by ignorance in the cloisters of the Romish Church, 
was brought forth, and the new enlightenment of 
the people eagerly embraced the Divine truths re- 
vealed by the intelligence and learning of Luther. 
Ignorance had covered Europe for centuries with 
its pall ; knowledge had now entered, and devel- 
oped intelligence with the open Bible. It was the 
evangel of a new dispensation. Alas, that so much 
of the old intolerance still clung and yet clings to 
the new liberty ! With the experience of the past 
it would seem an easy lesson to learn, that religion 
should encourage intellectual development as its 
best friend and sure defence. 

But, alas for poor human nature! we have only 
learned that the bodies of men are not to be burned 
for unbelief, and the remedy of Paul for heresy 



54 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

(i Tim. i. 20 ; Titus iii. 10) is yet for a while to be 
better than the teaching of Christ. Theology is 
yet confounded with religion, and men are still de- 
barred from church privileges for heresy though 
leading a righteous life. The pulpit still sneers at 
the science it does not understand, and misrepre- 
sents the religion of scientific men it cannot perse- 
cute in the flesh. 

This is done in face of the fact that the study of 
science does not encourage infidelity or unbelief, 
and in face of a long array of men eminent in sci- 
ence who have been warm supporters of Christi- 
anity. 

It may be true that intellectual development 
tends to explode theological absurdities, but it is 
not true that science has ever sought to lessen the 
distance between right and wrong, or render sin less 
sinful and odious ; but establishes with more and 
more certainty that a right life is obedience to the 
laws of God. Caste in India and elsewhere has 
heretofore been an almost impassable barrier to the 
introduction of Christianity, but when the loco- 
motive and rail-carriage entered the land, and the 
Parsee must walk or ride beside a meaner brother, 
he soon found a text allowing him to ride without 
pollution. 

When water was introduced into Calcutta, the 
proud Bralimin would not drink from the h\-diant 



SCIENCE A FOUNDATION. 55 

to which the lower caste had access ; but when he 
saw the only alternative was to drink the foul water 
of the river Hoogly, he soon found a license to 
drink the pure water of the hydrant, without realiz- 
ing, as we do, that the first blow was then struck on 
the entering wedge which was to break up caste. 

Thus the introduction of steam, the telegraph, 
and other triumphs of science are prompt mission- 
aries of Christian equality where other agencies 
have utterly failed. Thus science at least prepares 
the way for religious light, and in a few years the 
Bible of the missionary, instead of the miserable 
Pundit, will have a controlling influence. Let it be 
clearly understood that science is not religion, but 
that it furnishes an ever-widening foundation upon 
which to build a firm faith in that Power which is 
outside of and beyond us and " works for righteous- 
ness ;" clearly proving there should be no barrier 
between Christians on earth which does not exist 
in heaven, and that there should be no barrier to 
intellectual development this side of heaven's per- 
fections. 

The fact, however, remains that theology still 
sneers at science and brings God to shame by sub- 
stituting words of men for ways of God. 

The scientist, as a rule, is as well informed on 
prominent religious opinions as the theologian, and 
well knows the difference between pulpit theology 



56 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

and divine truth ; and when he hears teachers of 
rehgion advance theology as truth, and assail mere 
speculations and theories in science as if they were 
science itself, he is very apt to manifest disgust for 
such a theology. 

A sneering sciolist in the pulpit will sooner or 
later provoke scoffing from the scientist in the 
pew. 

This disgust at a narrow-minded theology is pro- 
nounced the sin of unbelief; and thus, between ab- 
surd dogmas on one side and ignorant pedantry on 
the other, a man without grace is very apt to feel as 
if he had been condemned for rejecting the oyster 
when he had only been offered the shell. 

The frequent record as news of ministers pro- 
hibited the pulpit for heresy by their more ortho- 
dox brethren is familiar to all ; and it is equally 
familiar to us that there is no fault to be found 
with their practical piety, but that they are cast 
out as unclean for opinions honestly held, and often 
well sustained by the Bible. 

Sermons from the pulpit, editorials in newspaper 
organs of churches, and books without number are 
too often based upon the unjust idea that a spirit- 
ual and emotional experience is a better rule of 
life than a spiritual faith founded upon an intelli- 
gent conception of God and a righteous life. 

A theology ]:>urcly emotional is ncccssaril\' spccu- 



THEOLOGY AND THEORY. 57 

lative, and subject to all the errors of an emotional 
and speculative nature. 

This tendency to error can only be corrected by 
the acquisition of knowledge and the cultivation of 
reason. 

Scientific knowledge would not reject creeds as 
aids to a proper enjoyment of social religion, or as 
aids to further development of religious faith ; but 
this would be by making creeds to act as servants 
and not as taskmasters. 

Mere knowledge, whether in religion or science, 
will never produce entire unity of doctrine as to 
creeds in religion or theories in science ; but these 
creeds and theories, if properly used, may serve as 
picket-guards to advancing truth : they may be used 
as scouts to explore or as guards to defend, but in 
either case must be subservient and subordinate to 
that common central principle, of which they are 
neither the strength nor the life. 

These remarks as to creeds and theories would be 
superfluous and even hypercritical were it not the 
fact that theological beraters and theoretical sceptics 
are a daily nuisance to both religion and science. 

I might quote at length illustrations of this theo- 
logical pedantry, from the over-confident young 
graduate of a seminary to the venerable D.D., who 
thus not only rebuke men of science as enemies of 
religion, but in so doing display the most lamentable 



58 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

ignorance of the questions they discuss and the 
knowledge they condemn. 

A single illustration will suffice to show that I 
am not unfair in this statement, at least as to 
the D.D. 

I quote from a book called " Modern Genesis," by 
a teacher of religion. As the Alleghany Seminary 
at Meadville, Penn., conferred upon the author the 
usual semi-lunar appendage of theological lore ap- 
parently as a reward for this his only literary publi- 
cation, it is fair to infer that the Alleghany Seminary 
(a religious institution) indorses the astronomy of 
the author, whom they so delighted to honor. 

Page 199 of " Modern Genesis," after referring to 
the fact that we do not see one hemisphere of the 
moon, says, " Why can we not observe that hemi- 
sphere? Why is it always turned away from us? 
Evidently because the moon is not balanced upon 
its centre. The hemisphere of greater density is 
toward the earth, and the earth holds it there. . . . 
We agree that the form of each of the planetary 
bodies is affected by its axial rotation, . . . but 
is any such effect possible to the moon ? Wc ven- 
ture to express the conviction that it is not. The 
moon then cannot be an oblate spheroid. Why do 
wc come to this conclusion? Because of its diurnal 
motion. The moon docs //of rn'olrc /ipo// its o:cn 
axis as the earth does, and as other planets do. 



SLAUGHTER. 59 

The earth is the centre of its diurnal rotation," etc., 
etc. 

Charity might, perhaps, excuse the *' diurnal " 
rotation as a mistake of the printer ; but when we 
are told in precise terms that "The moon does not 
revolve on its own axis," and '' therefore cannot be 
an oblate spheroid," and an argument deduced there- 
from against the nebular hypothesis, we are com- 
pelled to accept the statement that the '' diurnal " 
revolution of the moon around the earth is asserted 
in good faith, if not Avith good sense. 

It is but fair to add, that this quotation is not a 
sample of the entire book : it is, perhaps, the worst, 
as containing more Ignorance of astronomy in fewer 
lines than any other portion ; but there is more like 
it. 

This Doctor of Divinity and apparently the Alle- 
ghany Seminary are evidently ignorant of one of 
the fundamental laws of planetary motion, not at 
all depending upon their nebular origin, and by the 
operation of which the moon, as well as other hea- 
venly bodies, is guided in its axial and orbital mo- 
tions. 

The learned author discovers a '* diurnal " revolu- 
tion, which all other astronomers have failed to find, 
and discards as valueless the monthly revolution, 
in which we had until now believed most fully. 

He seems without the faintest idea that the com- 



6o THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

bination of the axial and orbital revolutions of the 
moon always keeps the same hemisphere of the 
moon towards the earth, and this too without throw- 
ing all the lunar water and air " towards the other 
side." 

All of this learned logic follows immediately after 
he has enunciated the very praiseworthy maxim, 
'* What we know, and not what we conjecture, should 
be the basis of our generalization." 

Proceeding upon this maxim of what he knows, 
and the moon legend above quoted, he, with theo- 
logical flippancy, corrects the errors of Herschel, 
Helmboltz, La Place, Lyle, Winchel, Spencer, Tyn- 
dal, and others, not only as to the nebular theory, 
but in other like investigations, which he, after the 
fashion of many others, claims inimical to religion, 
as he understands it. 

After this, let us extend the right hand of fellow- 
ship to the Rev. John Jasper, of Richmond, Virginia. 

The wonder is, that one so honored in divinity 
and astronomy did not tell us that the moon was 
left in this strange eccentricity as to " diurnal " and 
orbital revolutions when Joshua commanded it to 
stand still in the valley of Ajalon. 

It is clear, however, that this luminous \\ritcr does 
not read the London lliiics, for some years since a 
certain Mr. JclHngcr S}'monds worked out this same 
problem, with the same result, and pubHshod his 



SLAUGHTER. 6l 

production in the Times for the enlightenment of 
astronomers. 

If, however, the author had condescended to read 
*' Helen's Babies," he might have looked at the 
picture in a common-school astronomy, and then 
he would have seen '' How the weels go wound." 

If this reference to ''Modern Genesis" Is con- 
sidered severe, the author and Mr. Jellinger Sym- 
onds may at least comfort themselves with the 
assurance that they are supported by the Rev. 
John Jasper, of Richmond, Virginia, and that they 
will never be called upon to bear the accusation 
which Festus brought against Paul : " Paul, thou 
art beside thyself ; much learning doth make thee 
mad." -^ 

It is also a wonder that the author of " Modern 
Genesis" did not deny that the moon presents 
always the same side to the earth rather than give 
a fool's reason to account for it. 

Pope Urban VIII. was somewhat excusable when 
he humiliated and imprisoned a high-priest of the 
stars, for the Bible, as he read it, asserted that the 
sun did go around the earth ; and when the astron- 
omer of Pisa declared the contrary he was to be 
converted or punished. 

But the Bible did not tell this modern D.D. 



* Acts xxvi. 24. 



62 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

of Alleghany College that the moon does not re- 
volve on its axis now, or even when it stood still 
in the valley of Ajalon. 

When a man studies theology and a theological 
seminary garnishes his name with the D.D's of 
Doubtful Decoration for uttering such twaddle as 
above, we may well understand that the world was 
not created for the accommodation of such stupid- 
ity, but for the culture of reason ; and that it is not 
governed according to the superstitious prayers of 
ignorant men, but by the eternal laws of God, to 
be known and applied by all. 

We may also understand by such examples how 
ignorance wrests science from its proper use and 
destroys its proper influence, and apply the knowl- 
edge to religion as well as to science. 

Peter tells us plainly that it is the ignorant and 
unlearned who also "wrest the Scriptures to their 
own destruction." '^ 

It may seem presumptuous for a mere layman 
to question the accuracy or learning of a D.D., 
but I take refuge in the words of inspiration as 
recorded by Moses: "If a prophet shall presume 
to speak a word in my name which I have not 

commanded him to speak, he shall 

die." t 

* 2 Pclcr iii. i(). ] Dcut. xviii. 20. 



RELIGION ADAPTED TO ALL. 63 

I would not *' slaughter" the moon prophet, but 
beseech him to get wisdom and understanding. 

It is just such divinity and just such science, 
" falsely so called," upon which systems of a spuri- 
ous religion subsist, and whereby a true knowledge 
of God is hindered. 

If a man will not study God's laws in the works 
which he can sec, how can he interpret the movings 
of His Spirit in ways which he cannot see ? 

Any religion, to be universal, must be based on 
facts, and a fitness to universal man in all the rela- 
tions of life here and a reasonable hope in the life 
hereafter. 

It must be adapted to rich and poor ; simple and 
acceptable to those who are necessarily ignorant, 
but expansive as the most expansive intellect. 

The studies of expanded intellect, however, are 
not to be made standards in all of their extent for 
the less developed, as necessary to salvation ; nor 
must simple truths, because sufificient for the sim- 
ple, bar the way to higher knowledge. 

Just here is where the legitimate authority of 
creeds and catechisms, councils and assemblies, 
should be clearly defined. 

A creed should not prevent intellectual Inquiry 
or spiritual enlightenment, nor should it bind the 
conscience of the ignorant. 

" Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but 



64 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

not to doubtful disputations,"^ is as good a rule 
now as when given by Paul. 

The teaching and practice of Christ enjoin a 
simple faith, without any complications of cere- 
monials or tests of orthodoxy. 

He organized no churches, instituted no church 
discipline, and did not even have honest disciples ; 
yet he sent them all forth to preach in his name : 
Judas the traitor, as well as John the beloved ; 
Thomas doubted after the resurrection, and Peter 
dissembled after the miraculous Pentecost. 

To Christ the first commandment was the suffi- 
cient summary of the Old Testament, and ^' Love 
thy neighbor as thyself " was the adopted summary 
of the New. 

Search the Scriptures, was the rule for individual 
thought, and the teaching of the Spirit was given as 
the rule for individual faith for all time. 

We will see hereafter how this rule requires a care- 
ful study of God's ways in nature, as well as in 
recorded words; and any rule which detracts from 
this freedom of inquiry and freedom of faith is a 
delusion and a snare. 

The universal study and application of physical 
laws as they govern our social relations and our 
material existence, and of spiritual laws as they 

* Rom. xiv. I. 



ASTRONOMY — HERESY. 65 

govern the world of mind, will ever indicate seed- 
time and harvest to both mind and matter. 

When the veil of the Temple was rent, the power 
of a privileged or persecuting priesthood was can- 
celled forever. 

Every soul was made as free to worship in its own 
way as the intellect was free to make that worship 
intelligent and worthy of the inspiration breathed 
upon man in the garden of Eden, and promised in 
renewed measure through all time by the Holy Spirit. 

Such a religion is peaceful and progressive. 

Such have not always been the theologies of the 
past ; they were not peaceful, and not always pro- 
gressive. 

To theology, knowledge is often heresy, and re- 
mains so until increased intelligence compels a 
reform. 

The astronomy of Copernicus, Bruno, and Galileo 
was heresy to the church in their day, but is ortho- 
dox now in all of the churches, except perhaps the 
Seminary of Alleghany. 

Spontaneous generation — or evolution, as it is 
called — is heresy in most of our pulpits now, but was 
orthodox in 1674, when the clergy in Florence 
raised the cry of " heresy" against Francesco Redi 
for saying maggots were not a spontaneous genera- 
tion of decomposing flesh, but a product of eggs 
deposited there by flies. 



66 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE, 

The Bible, as they read It, said, most distinctly, 
that the carcass of Samson's lion brought forth a 
swarm of bees. 

This Is a fair specimen of verbal inspiration, and 
a fair illustration of the intolerance of an ignorant 
theology. 

In all cases where the church is not emancipated 
from the rule of ignorance, whether governed by 
Pope Urban or Pope Synod or Pope General As- 
sembly, a man of good influence in society and lead- 
ing a righteous life is liable to theological ostracism 
for a belief, or want of belief, in some favorite doc- 
trine of the church, though that belief, or want of 
belief, is not a test of God by the gospel of Moses 
or Christ. 

Such was the error of James and John, and not 
the teaching of Christ. 

When John came to Christ, complaining of a 
heretic who, though casting out devils, refused to 
follow him, proposing that Christ should stop him, 
" Jesus said unto him. Forbid him not: for he that 
is not against us is for us." * 

Human intelligence is a gift of God to guide us 
on earth and educate us for eternity ; and a theology 
which discourages intelligence will sooner or later, 



* Luke IX. 50. 



FLOWERS— WORSHIP. 6/ 

through ignorance or self-righteousness, degenerate 
into bigotry and arrogance. 

There is no escape from the conclusion that the 
intelligence which gives us supremacy over the ani- 
mal creation, and the soul which Is inseparably con- 
nected with it, must work hand in hand in order 
that we may know God in such a manner that we 
may serve and enjoy him, here and hereafter. 

It is by intelligence we learn more and more of 
God, and this is science ; it Is by the intelligent ap- 
pHcation of this knowledge we can love and honor 
Him more and more, and this is religion. 

Thus, we learn that " pretty flowers " are not be- 
neath a Christian's care ; that their beauty is greater 
than that of Solomon, for the Lord Himself arrays 
them, that they send up a ceaseless perfume which 
is sweet incense to Him ; that the insect whose daily 
food is in these same flowers hum.s an unceasing 
anthem of thanksgiving and praise. 

Every breeze bears to us the sweet odor of the 
flov/er, and the melody of the insect song. 

Shall we harden our hearts, that we respond not 
to the praise and worship ? 

Let us not, then, refuse knowledge, but study God 
everywhere, bearing in mind that, privileged as we 
are, we are but atoms in that great universe which 
God has made, and but a trifling part even of the 
earth upon which we live. 



6S THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

All that we can learn of every branch of science 
will not be too much for intelligent worship, and 
less than that is robbing God of the full measure of 
the service due to Him» 



CHAPTER IV. 

SCIENCE AND TRAINING. 

What has been said as to the necessity of science 
in rehgion would be sufficient if the large proportion 
of professing Christians were not governed by blind 
faith, rather than by a reasonable belief ; but line 
upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and 
there a little, seems necessary to rescue religion from 
worldly inferences, and elevate it to the higher 
standard of intelligence, rather than degrade it to the 
lower standard of ignorance or superstition. 

A certain amount of intellectual application is 
necessary to understand even simple truths as 
recorded in the Bible. 

A very large amount of intellect, well applied, is 
necessary to understand all its details ; but this 
can only be developed by studying with scientific 
accuracy the laws of God as revealed in physical sci- 
ence, and independent of the Bible record. 

It may be true that we walk by faith and not by 
sight, but this faith should be founded on things 
seen and known. 

"For the invisible things of Him [God] from the 
creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- 



70 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

stood by the things that are made, even His eternal 
power and Godhead ; so that they [sinful and ignor- 
ant] are without excuse." * 

It may be useful, therefore, to consider the ques- 
tion as to physical science a little more in detail. 

Tyndall says science includes three elements : 

1. Observation of facts. 

2. Induction of laws from these facts. 

3. Verification of these laws by experience. 

For convenience as well as accuracy we may 
divide the general subject into various parts. 

Physical science is the knowledge of nature, in- 
cluding all created existences. 

Astronomy is the part of physical science which 
treats of the facts known or to be ascertained con- 
cerning the celestial bodies. 

This branch teaches how the " pretty stars" and 
all the hosts of heaven were marshalled by the hand 
divine, and how '' the morning stars sang together" 
their song of praise. 

Geology treats of the structure of the earth on 
which we live, the causes of its physical features, and 
its history. 

Botany treats of the structure of plants and trees, 
the functions of their parts, the law of their growth 



Romans i. 20. 



TYNDALL— TORRE Y— GRAY. ^l 

and distribution, and their relation to man as well as 
to each other. 

This branch of science not only teaches us the 
wonderful provision for growth and continuance in 
the flower, but the beneficence of God in correlating 
the beauty of the flower to the perfecting of the 
fruit, so that it may be food for man. 

These are but divisions for general use, and are 
subdivided again and again for closer study. 

Tyndall has devoted the best years of his life to 
the investigation of heat, light, electricity, sound, etc. 

Huxley, to the study of living beings and the 
laws of their life and development. 

Agassiz, amid a multitude of other topics, learned 
more than others of the habits and structure of fish ; 
but found his life too short to do more than prepare 
an easy way for his successors. 

Torrey, Gray, and others of equal note have de- 
voted all of their energies to learn and make known 
to others the wonderful mysteries of vegetable life. 
The Darwins, but especially the present distin- 
guished Charles Darwin, have devoted an entire life 
to patient personal investigation to ascertain, as 
far as may be, the laws by which all living things 
develop and perpetuate their species or develop and 
change their former organization. It was not diffi- 
cult to trace the various breeds of dogs back to the 
common cur, or the numerous varieties of pigeons 



72 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

back to the common rock-pigeon ; but how the first 
dog or first pigeon originated, as such, has not been 
determined as a fact of science. Mr. Darwin thinks 
that further investigation will, at some future day, 
ascertain that all forms of life are the outcome of a 
single primitive form, and that subsequent develop- 
ments are produced by various compounds or com- 
binings of the simpler structure, under modifying 
circumstances, such as heredity of special qualities, 
natural selection, survival of the fittest, etc., in the 
continual struggle for life. The patience, industry, 
modesty, and honesty of these investigations, and 
similar ones by others, have opened up a long vista, 
as yet shadowy, but with glimpses of a light that 
bids fair to reveal a greater wonder of God's ways 
than has been revealed since the discoveries of New- 
ton. If we have once forced upon our intelligence 
a law of life to which Darwin believes he has the 
clue, we must openly deny aUegiance to our Maker, 
or we must admit our personal responsibility more 
practically than Ave do now; for it is only by so 
doing we can preserve our bodies pure, as tem- 
ples of God, and make habits of body as well as 
emotions of mind an essential part of practical reli- 
gion. Thus parents, instead of ignorantly transmit- 
ting to their children anger, pride, and solf-incUil- 
gence, would seek to transmit tlio better qualities, 
and thus render it easier to train them to love, tern- 



PARENTS, ETC. — DARWIN. 73 

perance, and virtue. Whether Darwin's doctrine be 
true to its fullest extent or not, enough has been 
established to teach us more than we ever under- 
stood before how children suffer unnecessarily for a 
parent's fault, and how, without implicating the jus- 
tice or the tender mercy of God, He visits the sins of 
the fathers upon the children. 

If teachers of religion and Christian parenrts, in- 
stead of sneering at Darwin, would inform them- 
selves of just what he does teach, they would find 
enough which, if well enforced from the pulpit and 
well obeyed in the pew, would soon not only im- 
prove bodily health and happiness, but promote 
spiritual religion. Let a parent fully realize by 
proper knowledge that a sin of the soul, when in- 
dulged, modifies and degrades his physical structure, 
and that the brain itself and every molecule of the 
body is thus made a partaker of sin, and if he is not 
worse than heathen, he will correct bad habits of 
mind as well as body, instead of transmitting them 
to his children. 

The physiological side of medical science teaches 
the laws of life, which every parent should under- 
stand sufficiently to observe them : one quarter of 
the time which is sacrificed to studying and follow- 
ing the pernicious laws of fashion would, if properly 
devoted to studying and following the divine laws 
of life, regenerate the human race. 



74 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Polite society swarms with capable but culpable 
parents who know and follow all the changing laws 
of fashion up to the latest date. Fashion may defile 
the person by its filthiness, or destroy health by its 
unfitness, but society, in the church as well as out 
of it, studies its behests and obeys its mandates. 
At the same time they give no attention to the fit- 
ness of fashion to a proper observance of the laws 
of life ; much less do they give time or attention to 
dietetics, ventilation, exercise, etc., which they know 
to be esssential to health. Thus a sound religion 
requires the aid of science, for religion as well as 
philosophy has suffered for the want of it. It is the 
scientific study of human nature in mind as well as 
body which has relieved religion of a belief in witch- 
craft, demoniacal possession, and a vast amount of 
other superstitions, at once the sham.e of religion 
and a barrier to its progress. 

Such are but a few specifications of studies known 
as science, and necessary to our moral and physical 
well-being ; but they are sufficient to illustrate the 
idea, though, if space allowed, the notice could be 
extended. Agriculture, music, sculpture, and the 
whole range of art, and the arts — all this is simply 
a knowledge of things as they exist and arc a part 
of manifest laws about us. There is as yet no ques- 
tion as to who ordained these laws, or why they 
were first established ; only how they operate. 



GENERAL SCIENCE — PARENTAL DUTY. 75 

Every teacher of religion should study at least su- 
perficially this wide range of facts, that he may 
know the relation they bear to his hearers, as ac- 
countable beings, and teach them, if need be, such 
general truths as will aid them to improve and enjoy 
life here and prepare for the life hereafter; for all 
knowledge correlates with our final destiny as well 
as our present inheritance. 

It does not follow from these remarks that every 
one should be learned in science or learned in reli- 
gion ; it simply follows that all should study truth 
and facts as far as within their reach and consistent 
with their duties of life, the doing of which faith- 
fully is a primary and essential part of any religion. 
The first duty of every mother, for instance, is to 
study and practise in her own person the laws of 
health, rather than the laws of fashion. She will 
thus secure her own right life, and, by example as 
well as precept, train her children in the same way. 
As the young mind is developed and can receive 
religious instruction, the mother should instil the 
simple truths of a right life, and the bearing of the 
truths upon a life hereafter. No parent is excusa- 
ble for extending a parental solicitude elsewhere 
than in the home until the first duty of parental 
teaching is performed at home, until the laws of life 
so necessary to health, and at least a few of the 
great truths necessary for a firm foundation of a 



'J^i THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

religious faith, are known and taught. A child, if 
properly instructed and properly trained in the laws 
of health, will not, but in exceptional cases, be- 
come a libertine or a drunkard in after-life, any 
more than he would put his hand in a flame he 
knows will burn. The acquired habits of body are 
frequently, perhaps generally, formed in early life, 
and are just as powerful for good or evil as natural 
temperament. For these acquired habits parents 
are responsible. Especially are parents responsible 
when they transmit their own sins of passion, intem- 
perance, selfishness, etc. ; for a child thus born with 
a diseased digestion and insatiable craving for stimu- 
lus has already been started upon a downward 
career : let this be supplemented by indulgence in 
early childhood, and a ruined life is more than prob- 
able. 

When a child grows up diseased and scrofulous 
from improper eating, the parent is responsible for 
the violation of an essential law of life, and the 
child suffers for the sin of the parent, whether the 
parent has sinned through wilful ignorance or equally 
wilful weakness of wicked indulgence. The parent 
finds no difficulty in knowing the hammer in the 
hand of the child will break a glass, and finds no 
difficulty in preventing its use ; nor is there any 
more difficulty in knowing that certain indulgences 
'in infanc)' produce bad hoallh. or that want c^f ro- 



PARENT AND CHILD. 7/ 

straint In young life is a sure source of temptation 
from within, and a ready suggestive of those temp- 
tations from without which beset the Hfe of youth. 

This Is also true of rehglous bcHef: a virtuous 
Hfe, even If resulting from acquired habits, is sugges- 
tive of a better faith ; but, in addition to these ac- 
quired habits of body, the child should be taught, as 
soon as It can understand, that these laws of God 
are to be observed not only for its own health and 
happiness, but also for the good of others and the 
carrying out of that greater law of God which is 
good alike to all His creatures. 

Thus a religious sentiment and a soul responsi- 
bility is developed from within, as it were, outwardly : 
instead of growing up a victim to a diseased body, a 
prey to bad habits and depraved principles, the child 
grows up to regard health and happiness as the gift 
of God by obedience to His laws, the body as the 
temple for His service, and the soul as a willing 
priest to worship the Creator and keep His temple 
undefiled. Thus instead of self-indulgence, as a 
stimulus to sin, we have self-restraint, as the hand- 
maid to virtue, and self-restraint grows to be an 
ordinary and natural condition instead of a self- 
righteous and Pharisaic accomplishment. Doing 
good to others becomes the normal condition of a 
right life. The general acceptance and practice of 
such duties would not only increase individual re- 



78 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

sponslbility, but would also elevate the Christian 
character. We could not, it is true, lay to our souls 
the flattering unction that we v/ere helpless victims 
of Adam's sin, but we could have the higher privi- 
lege of working with God in working out our salva- 
tion by co-operating in His plans, established before 
the foundation of the world. 

Surely this is better than an ignorant submission 
to sin, regarding God as at enmity not only with 
us, but the study of His own laws, and regarding 
ourselves as victims of vengeance for Adam's trans- 
gression to be rescued at some unknown period in 
some mysterious manner, perhaps by some spasmo- 
dic experience which may flow on perchance to a 
knowledge of intelligent religion, but quite as likely 
die out in disgust or bloom out in self-righteous 
Pharisaism. All that is here claimed for knowledge 
and understanding of physical laws, as the rule of 
training in young life, also applies to the proper un- 
derstanding of religious truths. A child is first to 
be taught the simpler facts of natural law before it 
is confused by higher problems, however necessaiy 
the higher problems may be to a more developed con- 
dition. So, also, a child is to be taught the simpler 
truths of God before it is confused with the conclu- 
sions or creeds of men. It must realize there is a 
great unseen Spirit, God, as the maker of all things, 
before it is confused with hypostatic enigmas as to 



CHILDREN INSTRUCTED. 79 

His dual or triune personality. It must know right 
and wrong as parental teaching applied to its own 
soul, by divine influence, before it is confounded 
with the entanglements, or called upon to decide 
between the dogmas, of the Greek or Roman Church, 
as to the paternal or filial procession of the Holy 
Ghost with the most simple faith in God as the 
basis of a fully developed belief. Creeds will come 
fast enough, and after all require restraint ; but with 
the creeds as the basis of youthful belief there is an 
equal chance that, as the mind matures and finds 
the faith of its childhood false, it may discard all 
creeds as mere ignorant assumption or hypocritical 
pretence, and perhaps discard religion altogether as 
part and parcel of the same profession. 

This brings us to the general statement as to what 
we should know, and the relation of this knowledge 
to daily life. First of all, God does not require us 
to study either science or theology to the neglect of 
daily duties, but as aids to perform those duties bet- 
ter. The first duty of every parent, and a continuous 
duty through life, is to train a child to bodily health 
and right life as a law of God, and the enjoyment 
of such obedience as evidence of God's loving-kind- 
ness ; that sin and sorrow are not Inflictions of God's 
wrath, but violations of beneficent provision for the 
well-being and happiness of the race. The simplicity 
of instruction to a young mind should follow the 



80 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

same rule adopted by the heavenly Father in in- 
structing the mind of man in the infancy of early 
creation. A simple knowledge of material things 
was accomplished by a simple child-Uke religion, but 
the mistake of man in every succeeding age has been 
to consider his religious belief as perfect. No mat- 
ter how great the revival of mere intellectual knowl- 
edge, there has ever been a resistance of the religion 
of the day to profit by that intellectual growth as 
an essential condition to a better faith ; but the 
higher mysteries of religion are at the same time pre- 
sented to the young mind as necessary elements of 
behef. 

Thus the profession of religion is behind a true 
standard in scientific accuracy or extent of knowl- 
edge, and is equally at fault by retaining loose and 
superstitious standards of faith. As childhood 
merges into manhood and individual responsibility 
assumes prominence, we should study and learn our- 
selves as something that exists within us and separate 
from all other things. No man can mistake himself 
for anything else, and therefore whatever he learns 
concerning himself becomes individual and is always 
at his immediate service, and should be at the service 
of his religious faith. All other objects of creation 
except this inner self are outside of us, but by study 
become part of us, and may, for better or worse, 
modify our dcstin}\ \W^ are to stud)' this outside 



SCIENCE DOES NOT CREATE LAWS. 8 1 

world and its laws as we have opportunity, then, and 
apply this knowledge so that we may seek, and per- 
chance find, a reasonable perception of that Power 
beyond ourselves, and beyond the material world 
outside of us, which is revealed in goodness through 
His manifold works. In this way a knowledge of 
God's works and laws is a knowledge of God Himself; 
better knowledge leads to better love and better 
service. The theological objection to a scientific 
study of nature would seem to infer that the knowl- 
edge obtained is an actual creation of the study, but 
we must remember that the laws of nature or the 
facts of science are not created by a study thereof 
any more than our obligations to God originate in a 
church profession. The laws of astronomy and every 
fact of science exist, whether men learn to love 
them or scorn and reject them. 

It is our duty to honor God and accept His offered 
grace whether we profess to do so or not ; thus the 
works and laws of God remain our teachers whether 
we accept the teaching or reject it. Paul tells us 
on this subject very clearly that "the invisible 
things of Him from the creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ; so 
that they are without excuse." '^ Thus we learn by 

* Romans i. 20. 



82 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

apostolic teaching as well as by study that it is in 
the ordinary way of God's providence to reveal 
spiritual truth by natural law. It should not dis- 
credit science or the study of science that its votaries 
draw erroneous conclusions as to the mysterious 
personality of God or the equally mysterious begin- 
nings of created things, any more than it should dis- 
credit religion because theologians wrangle and draw 
false conclusions about spiritual things. Let us ad- 
here to a true religion on one side and a true science 
on the other, and never fear collision. Spiritual con- 
ceptions may be based upon material facts, but this 
does not constitute materialism a judge of spiritual 
experience, nor does any scientist, so far as I know, 
pretend that scientific knowledge should judge or 
oppose the faith of any one in that spiritual experi- 
ence that is based upon the unseen and invisible. 
Science only affirms that such matters of emotional 
belief should not be a standard to determine or dis- 
credit scientific accuracy in the study of natural laws, 
neither should such emotional experience be accepted 
as authority to determine the faith of others. The 
knowledge of scientific facts and the application of 
that knowledge to our daily duties is quite a differ- 
ent matter from a spiritual experience here and a 
spiritual faith as to the hereafter. The two are in- 
dependent of each other, yet b\' working in harmony 
the culture of one will alwa}s aid the culture of the 



EVOLUTION OR CREATION THE SAME. 83 

other. It is the province of science to investigate 
cosmic matter everywhere, and it should be ascer- 
tained that primitive star-dust had furnished the 
germ of Hving monera to our earth, and these moncra 
had finally developed a perfect man ; we would still 
know that man, whether formed from' a lump of 
clay by the hand of God or evolved from a particle 
of protoplasm by a law of God, would still be a 
spiritual child of the same Father, created by the 
same power, breathed upon by the same breath, and 
alloted to the same destiny. 

Man was already a perfect animal when the Deity 
breathed upon him His own Spirit, thus elevating 
him above all other created beings, and, more than 
all, giving him the power to know and comprehend 
his Creator. Not only this, but he was to develop 
liimself by this gift and transmit the development 
thus acquired to others. When God brought the 
fowls of the air and the beasts of the field to Adam 
that he might name them, It was because He had 
already given him the Intellect to name them under- 
standingly, according to their nature and habits. 
" And whatsoever Adam called every living thing, 
that was the name thereof." Very few nowadays 
know as much about natural history as Adam did, 
but we do know more than we utilize, and we are 
Ignorant of many things easy to be known and nec- 
essary for spiritual profit and a just appreciation of 



84 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

religious truths. The more we profit by what we 
know God has done in nature, tlie less will we dog- 
matize about what we do not know, and the better 
we will understand that " in wisdom He made them 
all." If we appreciate properly how God " so clothes 
the flowers of the field," and so feeds the birds of 
the air and the beasts of the earth that not a sparrow 
falls without His counsel, how much easier will we 
realize that He will care for us, even though we are 
''of Httle faith"! 

The more we study how the heavens and the earth 
were made, the better we can understand how the 
heavens declare His glory and the firmament showeth 
forth His handiwork; how " day unto day uttereth 
speech and night unto night showeth knowledge," 
until there is no speech nor language where their 
voice is not heard. In the unceasing harmony of 
law, the perpetuity, beneficence, and goodness of 
its operation, we realize that mind and matter arc 
alike of God ; that He is over all and in all — the 
same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Individualh' 
we see that in the body we arc but atoms in the 
throng of beings and things which declare His glory. 
But spiritually we learn a higher note, and arc taught 
a solo in that choral song, by Avhich wc can say in 
confidence, *' Our l^^athcr \\hich art in heaven," and 
believe in faith that, though our voice ma}' cease 
from the earthly choir, our song of praise will ne\'er 



heaven's declare. 85 

end, for the dying body will but release tlie spirit, 
which will hereafter chant the doxology, " For Thine 
is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever 
and ever. Amen." 



CHAPTER V. 

Theology. 

Theology claimed for nearly a thousand years 
that reading the Bible, without other knowledge,^was 
sufficient both for edification and salvation. It also 
claimed that the Bible must be accepted and under- 
stood by the church hierarchy. This doctrine once 
established, the church through all these centuries 
became a fruitful mother of ignorance, bigotry, super- 
stition, and persecution. 

During all this millennium of church rule the free- 
born intellect of man crouched a slave at the feet of 
a despotic church which professed liberty in Christ 
Jesus. While Ishmael the wanderer was developing 
the power of intelligence, Isaac the son of promise 
was sinking deeper in ignorance, and but for the 
wisdom of God overruling the wickedness of men, 
the crescent instead of the cross might have been 
the symbol of resistance to the tyranny of the 
mediaeval church. 

Church religion, though fully sustained by tem- 
poral power, was dying out by its own inherent cor- 
ruption ; but for the infidel, who had seized the 
fallen torch of science and rekindled its d}-ing bkizc. 



BIBLE TO BE READ INTELLIGENTLY. 8/ 

the dark ages might have brooded over Europe for 
other centuries. 

God thus taught the world not only that every 
man must be allowed a knowledge of the Bible, but 
that to enjoy a saving faith he must be allowed the 
exercise of intelligence to read it understandingly, or 
priestly rule would supersede liberty in Christ. 

God thus taught men that knowledge was neces- 
sary to a progressive religion, and that, although 
men might serve God in bodily ceremonials, they 
were also to study and serve Him with the intellect 
and soul. 

The doctrine that a church without science cannot 
develop the human race here stands out in bold 
rehef, and that an ignorant or exclusive theology is 
an excrescence to be destroyed, not a growth to be 
nurtured. 

We here see that to separate religion from reason 
is to expose it to all the waywardness of the senses, 
the bigotry of superstition, the bitterness of perse- 
cution, and self-righteousness of phariseeism. 

Peter tells us this very plainly when he writes that 
there are things in the Scripture hard to be under- 
stood, and which " the unleavened and unstable 
wrest to their own destruction." * 

This is want of learning, it is true ; but so long as 

* IL Peter iii. i5. 



88 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

teachers of religion assume undue authority as spirit- 
ual guides, and whether from ignorance or jealousy 
derogate from the influence of scientific study, or 
undervalue the work of scientific men, they neces- 
sarily subject religion itself to reproach from edu- 
cated men who regard the teacher as a fair exponent 
of his faith. 

This, perhaps, ought not to be the result ; but 
such is the law of our nature, and such is the result 
of that semi-inspired call to the office and semi- 
inspired fitness for its functions which seems to be 
considered in the churches as a peculiar heritage. 

But every teacher of religion should know and 
understand this phase of human nature before he 
presumes to tickle the ear of a narrow-minded lis- 
tener by untruthful flings at science or scientific 
studies ; and especially before he attempts to belit- 
tle scientific men. 

Nothing pleases narrow-minded ignorance more 
than a sneer at higher intelligence, especially if the 
teacher add to this the too frequent concomitant of 
this kind of teaching, a certain goodyism of self- 
satisfying talk about "higher life " and similar tran- 
scendental trash, which Is but a sugar-coated gossip 
about solemn truths, and very far from being a sub- 
stitute for intelligent bcHcf or a righteous life. 

Of all the rcHglous diseases of the present day, 
this "goody good" talk about *' inner life," '' higher 



GOODYISM. 89 

life," and " suffering for Christ" Is the most disgust- 
ing to intelHgent minds, because it not only caters 
to a self-satisfied sanctity, but reveals a covert con- 
tempt for a better intelligence. It is the duty of 
every Christian to " search the Scriptures," and 
under present rule it is also a free privilege ; but it 
is not possible to do this intelligently without the 
aids of science, either employed personally or 
adopted from the study of others. 

No man pretends that a mason Is a better mason, 
or a carpenter a better carpenter, because he is 
ignorant of the hterature of his trade ; no one pre- 
tends a lawyer is a better lawyer, or a physician a bet- 
ter physician, because he neglects scientific studies, 
even beyond the routine of his profession. If we 
are thus practical in the pursuit of merely temporal 
and temporary interests, why stultify our intellectual 
nature and cripple our progress in a better life by 
remaining ignorant of any knowledge God has placed 
within our reach ? Why go through life with our 
heads bowed like bulrushes, when our Divine Mas- 
ter calls us to the mountains of His glory, where we 
may also be more like Him ? When David said, " I 
am fearfully and wonderfully made, . . . and that my 
soul knoweth right well," "^^ he referred to the law of 
his physical life as well as the soul resident of the 

* Ps. cxxxix. 14. 



90 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

body. He recognized the responsibility of this knowl- 
edge when he further adds, " One generation shall 
praise Thy works to another, and shall declare Thy 
mighty acts." ^ Science reveals God as the father 
of our spirits, as the framer of our bodies ; for our 
bodies are a part of that material creation outside of 
us which we study and analyze as matter, governed 
by the common laws of life. It is the study itself, 
the mind work, which reveals a spirit existence 
within ourselves ; which, and which only, can realize, 
if it cannot fathom, the existence of controlling 
spirit beyond us. 

When our highest intelligence fully developed 
fails to penetrate an endless array of mystery in the 
world of creation, we must admit a creative intelli- 
gence beyond and superior to our own. When this 
intelligence by study and research further finds that 
these mysterious creations — from the largest planet- 
ary orb that speeds its everlasting course beyond our 
unaided vision, down to the smallest meteor which 
burns to ashes before our sight ; from the mastodon 
to the mite ; from the eagle to the insect, from the 
insect down to the smallest atom of protoplasm , 
from man, who talks with God, to the molecule of 
which he is framed — are the same }'csterday, to-day, 
and forever, it must be proof that, with this great 

* Ps. cxlv. 4. 



DIVERSITY, ETC., PROVES DEITY. 9I 

Creator above us, '' a thousand years are as one day, 
and one day as a thousand years." 

The lightning, which bursts from cloud to cloud 
in flashing brilliance or splits the knotted oak in 
its greeting to the earth, was to ancient Israel 
but a mysterious minister with chariot and horses 
of fire. It is to us a beneficent agency of blessing 
to man and beast ; yet it is the same, except the 
added knowledge of its usefulness. The same sun- 
light which gave life and beauty to Adam in 
Eden still illumines the universe of his race; the 
same bow Noah saw spanning the heavens spans 
them now. 

When intelligence recognizes a harmonious meet- 
ing through all these extremes, through all these 
diversities an undoubted unity, and all working to- 
gether with a precision which could only result from 
a single design, it also recognizes the work of but 
one creative power. It is evident that this endless 
diversity, this unfathomable variety of creation, can 
only be kept in harmony so precise by one Deity cre- 
ating all things in the beginning and presiding over 
all things unto the end. Men may differ as to the 
name by which this Deity shall be known, and as to 
the modes of His manifestation ; men may differ 
about terms in describing a personality or spirituality 
as to His divine essence ; but the fact remains, over 
and above all human dispensation, that God reveals 



92 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Himself materially to our senses and intellectually 
to our souls. 

" It is a blessed thought that the reign of law, 
which is so wonderful to us, is the law of other 
worlds than ours, and extends beyond the realm of 
human life ; for we know that all other intelligences 
in other planets, if such there be, are knowing God 
by the same laws and revelations by which He is 
known to us ; and when our eyes shall close upon 
the scenes of time and change — when we shall stand, 
as we all hope to stand, in the everlasting presence 
of Deity, and there see revealed the goodness and 
glory of God, not only to beings of earth, but in 
all that He has created, we will realize that we are 
but a small part of an unbounded creation, and that 
millions like ourselves, in the same and other forms 
of being, have also lived under the same benign gov- 
ernment, have seen and studied the same wonderful 
works, enjoyed the same goodness, and, being finally 
rescued from apparent death in time by the same 
redeeming love, may join in one common anthem to 
tender mercy and redeeming grace, and join with 
the whole host of Heaven, 

'Forever singing as they shine, 
The hand that made us is divine.' " 

It is true no scientific scrutiny can unveil the mys- 
tery of Divine Being, or define the essence of His 



PAUL — SOLOMON— DAVID. 93 

existence ; we cannot to-day, any more than we 
could three thousand years ago, answer the question 
of Zophar to Job, '' Canst thou by searching find out 
God ? canst thou find out the Almighty unto per- 
fection ? " * and we are compelled to admit, with 
David, that " His greatness is unsearchable," f and 
with Solomon that '' No man can find out the work 
that God maketh from the beginning to the end." ij: 

Paul fully confirms this as to the moral world 
when he says that God's '' judgments are unsearch- 
able, and his ways past finding out." § Nor can 
science go beyond this, but is also compelled to 
speak of the " secret of Divine Being as unknowable." 
Thus the wisdom of Solomon, the poetry of David, 
the theology of Paul, and the philosophy of Spencer 
concur in the mystery of a Divine Being as well as 
the mystery of matter. 

The fact, however, remains that the Supreme 
Power is ever-present and ever-abiding ; that enough 
is revealed to instruct us in all that relates to our 
present being and relative duties, and enough to fix 
our final responsibility. 

In this view of God's work and our responsibility 
we cannot study the laws of natural things too 
thoroughly or obey them too implicitly. Such 



* Job xi. 7. f Psalms cxlv. 3. ^ Eccl. iii. 11. 

§ Romans xi. 33. 



94 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

knowledge and such obedience work no hardship to 
us, but, by making known to us in advance God's 
way of working, enable us to profit by such knowl- 
edge on earth, and to enjoy also an intelligent hope 
in the great hereafter. 

The more we develop our intellect the higher 
conception we will have of the God made manifest, 
and this knowledge improved by the soul will give 
it a higher conception of God made manifest to our 
spirits. 

As a rule, the more exact and extended our 
knowledge the more exact and intelligent will be 
our religion. Every true worshipper, ignorant or 
enlightened, embodies in the Deity he worships 
the best attributes and qualities which he himself 
can conceive, but the characteristics of Deity as 
conceived by an ignorant mind will fall below the 
characteristics of Deity as conceived by an intelli 
gent mind just so far as the ignorance of the one is 
below the intelligence of the other. There must be 
some knowledge of the works and ways of a su- 
preme being as the basis of the most simple religion. 
The more our intellectual capacity is developed the 
more exalted will be our spiritual worship, provided 
spirit and intellect work in that harmony and love 
of truth so clearly required by God. 

Scientific study is (jod's way of ro\'caling to man 
the plan of His \\()rking in the material world, and 



RELIGION ELEVATED BY KNOWLEDGE. 95 

thus making known not only the glories of His 
creation but His goodness and love, bringing the 
intelligence and love of God in actual contact with 
the intelligence and love of His creatures. It is 
true that with abounding knowledge sin may also 
abound, and knowledge may even strengthen sin ; 
but in like manner will grace also abound, and 
knowledge will strengthen grace. It is the duty of 
abounding grace to see to it that sin does not mo- 
nopolize science, but that Christian faith, by the aid 
of new knowledge and higher development, becomes 
" the substance of things hoped for and the evidence 
of things not seen." George Eliot, in " Daniel 
Deronda," among many platitudes brings out this 
epigrammatic truth : *' Our life becomes more spirit- 
ual by capacity for thought." We may enlarge this 
statement, and assume that our life becomes more 
spiritual as our capacity is enlarged. Whether this 
capacity shall develop a good or evil factor in our 
nature is for a true religion to determine. The capa- 
city is there and will develop. If religion employ it 
in God's service, it will develop for His glory; but if 
rejected by religion, it may become tributary to sin. 
Intellect and soul are more nearly associated than 
body and soul : intellect is the connecting link be- 
tween body and soul, and is more nearly allied to 
soul in the nature of its operations. If we cultivate 
this nearer relationship, intellect and soul will draw 



96 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

nearer together, and the body render more willing 
service instead of slavish resistance. The body, 
the house in which the spirit lives on earth, and its 
senses are the ever-ready tempters to sin and sor- 
row : " The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak ;" for, 
as St. Paul forcibly puts it, " There is a natural [car- 
nal] body, and there is a spiritual body ;"* and again, 
" There is a law in my members warring against the 
law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to 
the law of sin which is in my members." f It is im- 
possible, therefore, to overestimate the importance 
of thoroughly understanding all those laws of matter 
as well as of mind which enter into the formation of 
our human nature ; for, as Paul further adds, " If ye 
live after the flesh, ye shall die : but if ye through 
the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye 
shall live.":j: Thus we are assured that the mental 
and material elements of our being, if properly 
working together, will so far control temptation as 
to secure the entire humanity to a willing worship 
of one God, the Jehovah of the Jew, as the framer 
of our bodies and the father of our spirits. Here 
appears forcibly the great fact that our bodies are 
a part of the material world outside of ourselves; 
owned and controlled by us to a certain extent, but 
only owned and controlled by laws of God govcrn- 

* I. Cor. XV. 44. f Romans vii. 23. | Romans viii, 13. 



SOUL, NOT BODY, THE PERSONALITY. 97 

ing other living bodies, and to a less extent govern- 
ing all bodies. The personal identity, the real en- 
tirety, of existence is spiritual. We grow from 
puling infancy to mature manhood, from maturity 
to declining life, and the identity remains. All that 
was material has changed, times without number; 
the cheek that once bloomed with blush of youth 
and beauty has become yellow and wrinkled in age 
and infirmity ; the strong frame has become feeble 
and tottering; but the intellect and soul are still iden- 
tified with every item of existence. The body has 
lived by a material law governing matter, and the 
soul has lived and developed by a spiritual law. The 
body and soul, thus inseparably connected in earthly 
life, are yet distinct and separate as to life here and 
existence hereafter. The natural body, though gov- 
erned by natural laws, is still subject to the spiritual 
nature, and thus subordinated to the service of God. 
Thus we see the stature of a full-grown Christian is 
made up by all attainable knowledge of natural 
laws, and especially the laws of the inner and outer 
life, and also by a spirit depending upon the Holy 
Spirit as revealed and promised, which, by applying 
all divine teaching, enables the entire man to live 
according to the divine law ; thus not only begin- 
ning but working out a righteous life unto the end. 
When the natural body also, by the operation of 
natural law, returns to dust, the soul is prepared to 



98 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

enter that spiritual body which remains its home for- 
ever in the presence of the Lord. 

This knowledge of natural law, especially as ap- 
plied to our bodily life, is the real stronghold of a 
healthy spiritual life. By educating our senses, con- 
trolling our desires, and conforming our habits to 
the laws of nature, our bodily senses and our erratic 
passions will be easier maintained in a normal con- 
dition and co-operate with God in a willing and joy- 
ous service, instead of lashing us to an indulgence 
only restrained by fear of punishment. Service to 
God thus becomes a joy and rejoicing instead of a 
penal pressure here to escape a worse penalty here- 
after. It is to enter heaven with opened-armed 
welcome instead of escaping hell by the skin of the 
teeth. Science, if received as the friend and ally of 
religion, will not hinder or obstruct its full develop- 
ment or intrude upon its spiritual domain. Science 
and the Bible are alike instruments to be employed 
in working out an onward progress for humanity, 
and religion should profit alike by each. It is 
wrangling with science which hurts religion, not co- 
operating with it. 

New developments in science are not to be re- 
jected, although they may conflict with an old theo- 
logical creed ; nor should an old or new creed of 
theology, however a])surd or opposed to reason, 
disgust a scientist with religion. Thus perhaps 



INSTINCT, ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL. 99 

both In Intellect and spirit we can walk with Paul 
to those higher mysteries which even Peter found It 
hard to understand."'^ A mere theological faith 
without knowledge Is not true religion ; such faith 
may be founded on error or It may be founded on 
truth. We all know men have died for falsehood 
and for truth with equal firmness. Paul assures us 
that he verily thought he did God service by perse- 
cuting Christians, and yet he suffered martyrdom 
for Christianity. As an illustration In this line of 
thought, we see that human instinct is not a safe 
guide to action in our natural bodies, but when, as 
in human nature, an intelligence has been added to 
the animal structure, and the intelligence is a con- 
necting-link between the natural body and the spir- 
itual body, we may trust knowledge and under- 
standing to control the natural body as the profita- 
ble basis for a spiritual dwelling-place on earth. 
The spirit is then left to act according to its laws 
and commune with God. 

The Instinct of a brute mother Is a safe guide In 
nursing her young, and the brute acts, as It were, 
conscientiously, according to her instincts ; but the 
instinct of a human mother is not a safe guide, and 
to her is given an intelligence to care for its more 
artificial condition of life. 

* II. Peter iii. 16. 



lOO THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Alas ! the human mother often manifests less 
sense than the brute, for she fails to nurse her child 
and fit it to live according to its human environ- 
ment, but nurses it and trains it without the proper 
exercise of human intelligence, and with less than 
animal instinct. 

The only wonder is that humanity with such 
training is not totally depraved both in body and 
soul. The soul reaches to God on the one side and 
humanity on the other, but without aid from intelli- 
gence there is but emotion and erratic sensibility, 
which are no safer guides to a spiritual faith than 
blind instinct is to guide in parental duties of a 
temporal nature. An enlightened spiritual develop- 
ment can only be reached by association with en- 
lightened intellectual development. 

It is this union of common-sense with religion, 
knowledge, and spirituality that has developed and 
given permanence to true religion among men ; en- 
abled it to conquer corruption and ignorance ; and 
justifies the hope that in spite of every hindrance 
the knowledge of God will yet rule the earth, and the 
love of God guide the affections of men. Creeds in 
their day deemed essential to religion have been 
again and again swept away by other creeds ; but 
the purging away of the dross, in the long-run, is for 
the building up of a better faith. Knowledge has 
often been partially obscured in the wreck of nations, 



UNION OF SENSE AND RELIGION. lOI 

but has ever risen to new life, unless restrained by 
superstition and bigotry. 

With the word of God read understandingly, and 
the works and ways of God studied scientifically, 
and the intelligent use of both in a right life, we 
may hope to understand the harmony of God in all 
His ways, the wisdom of God in all His works, His 
loving-kindness and tender mercy to all His crea- 
tures. 

With such a religion we may obey the word of 
the Psalmist and ^' Tell it to the generations follow, 
ing. For this God is our God for ever and ever : 
He will be our guide even unto death." ^ 

* Psalm xlviii. 13, 14. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Dogmas and Acts of Religious Organiza- 
tions. 

We must also understand that the Bible alone, 
without an intelligent knowledge and application of 
its contents, is not a charm to maintain true religion. 

The Romish Church possessed the Bible, and 
quoted its authority when they persecuted men for 
seeking knowledge outside of church teaching. 

The Protestant Church of Geneva had the Bible, 
and professed to be guided by it when they burned 
Servetus. Calvin, a great church corner-stone since 
then, had the Bible, and taught it by authority when 
he furnished the testimony on which Servetus was 
condemned. 

The English Church had the Bible, and used it to 
burn John Rogers and one thousand others. 

The Congregational Council at Indian Orchard, 
Mass., the Dutch Reformed Chassis of New York, 
the Presbyterian Synod of New Jersey, and the 
General Assembly of the United States had the 
Bible, and used it to silence ministers from preach- 
ing heresy. 

Each one of these representative bodies, within 



CENTRAL TRUTHS, ETC. IO3 

the last few years, has virtually affirmed that ad- 
hesion to a creed as established by church councils 
precedes the liberty taught by Christ. 

It would be uncharitable to affirm that these rep- 
resentative bodies did not act conscientiously ; thus 
it only remains to believe that they attached less 
importance to great central truths, as the basis of 
religion and religious work, than to dependent defi- 
nitions as determined by men. The central truth 
of religion is to obey and serve God : '' Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all 
thy mind ; and thy neighbor as thyself," is the sum- 
mary of Christ.'^ " This do, and thou shalt live." 
The minor and dependent condition to this central 
duty is the mode of performing it, and the only 
means of determining this mode is by the intelligent 
exercise of an enlightened judgment, which must 
necessarily be flexible and adapted to the changing 
conditions of society and the advance to a higher 
civilization. A true devotion to great central truths 
cannot persecute brethren for opinion's sake on 
minor matters, or refuse Christian fellowship to 
others by giving more importance to the doctrines 
of men than to the fundamental truths of God as 
interpreted by Christ or revealed in nature. The- 

* Luke X. 27, 



I04 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

ology is a human outgrowth of religion and not its 
divine essence. Whenever it sets bounds to free 
inquiry it becomes a hindrance instead of a help to 
the spread of truth. When theology shuts the Bible 
out from all intellectual discussion and rejects the 
scientific study of nature as inimical to true faith, it 
is worse than idolatry. 

A theology having rejected individual liberty al- 
most invariably abuses the Bible itself, by pervert- 
ing its teachings, yet claiming it as authority for 
acts contrary to its entire spirit. Prosecution and 
even persecution have been time and again defended 
by such texts as Romans xvi. i6, 17 ; I. Cor. v. 5, 1 1, 
16; Matt, xviii. 17; II. John 10; I. Timothy i. 20; 
Gal. i. 8 ; Titus ii. 10. It was Jewish theology quot- 
ing Moses that crucified Christ ; it was Saul, a 
Hebrew of the Hebrews, wdio hunted the followers 
of Christ from city to city. Churches quoting both 
Paul and Christ since that time have persecuted 
uncounted souls to death for opinion's sake, whose 
cries and groans have come all along the ages to our 
ears. These churches profess to believe the Bible, 
but, alas! they also profess to believe the church as 
the appointed custodian not only of God's knowl- 
edge and grace, but also of His judgments. 

By suppressing intelligence the Romish Church 
dcvcloj-jcd, or ratlicr assumed, a power over men's 
iiouls until the Bible became a closed bocMc, and the 



THEOLOGY OPPOSING SCIENCE. 105 

free grace of God an article of traffic. Compared 
with sucli an abuse of divine worship, the practices 
of Moloch were mercy and loving-kindness. It is a 
religion of hate instead of love, persecution instead 
of mercy, judgment instead of justice ; beginning by 
professing to hate sin, it developed by hating every- 
thing as sin which was not orthodox, and ended by 
hating and persecuting every one of a different faith. 
Religion controlled by intelligence is, on the con- 
trary, usually a religion of charity. Nor will such a 
religion suffer from perverts and backsliders, as a 
church built up on emotional enthusiasm. 

Theology without knowledge dictates ; science, 
even without religion, investigates, and certainly 
never discourages the most free examination of every 
assertion and theory. Practically the basis of the- 
ology is too often the idea that everything is known, 
whereas the basis of all scientific study is that there 
is more to be acquired. A theology thus perfect 
naturally discards further study, and almost as natu- 
rally sneers at scientific men who believe study neces- 
sary. This sneering at the study of nature as seen 
in the flowers of earth, the stars of heaven, and in 
material things generally, appears to be at present a 
substitute for the older practice of burning books of 
science and the men who wrote them, but which is 
now forbidden by advancing civilization. 

This practice of suppressing science to uphold a 



I06 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

church and the authority of its priesthood is by no 
means a peculiarity of the Christian church. It has 
ever been a weapon of human weakness when hold- 
ing temporal power, and is incidental to all forms 
of worship. Caliph Omar, it is said, burned the 
Alexandrian library because, as he afi(irmed, the 
Koran contained all that was worth knowing. If 
these books agreed with the Koran, they were super- 
fluous ; and if they differed from it, they were danger- 
ous and must be destroyed.. On the same principle 
the Christian crusaders five hundred years after- 
wards burned the library at Tripoli, on a campaign 
to recover the sepulchre of Jesus, because the 
library was a repository of Arabian literature. 

Some five hundred years later Cardinal Ximenes 
burned eighty thousand manuscripts, all the Arabian 
literature he could collect, in Granada; and nearly all 
the surviving literature of the Aztecs — mountains 
of manuscript, it is said — was burned by the first 
archbishop of Mexico. In each case the persecu- 
tion of men accompanied the destruction of sacred 
literature. The same principle that burned books 
to suppress profane knowledge killed men to convert 
their souls. This has not been peculiar to one age 
any more than confined to one church. Paul ex- 
communicated Alexander and II}'mena:us and de- 
livered them over to Satan on a ciuostion of faith, "^ 
* I. Timothy i. 20, 



CONSTANTINE — SERAPIAN LIBRARY. I07 

a practice most assiduously followed by almost every 
prominent church since. It must, however, always 
be remembered that while Paul was intolerant to 
schismatics in the church, he was ever liberal to all 
who were ignorant and would seek a better under- 
standing. Whether Paul was right or wrong in pun- 
ishing heretical teachers in the church, he is un- 
doubtedly an authority for church councils in pun- 
ishing recalcitrant clerics. This church discipline to 
correct schism caused by voluntary members is quite 
different from that exercise of authority which sup- 
presses thought and conscience as well as teaching, 
destroys literature already acquired, and tortures 
men who owe no voluntary obedience to the church 
except that Avhich it has usurped and exercises be- 
cause it has the power to do so unpunished. 

It was but a Httle while after Constantine adopted 
the cross of Christ as the imperial standard of Rome, 
that Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, burnt 
the great Serapian library collected by the Ptolemies, 
which had escaped the conflagration of Caesar's con- 
quest, A.D. 391. Not long after this the nephew and 
successor of Theophilus, St. Cyril, and a mob of 
monks seized Hypatia the mathematician as she re- 
paired to the academy where she taught geometry, 
mathematics, and philosophy. After stripping her 
naked in the streets, they killed her with clubs, muti- 
lated her body and burned the fragments. Hypatia 



I08 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

was a beautiful woman of unquestioned virtue, per- 
sonal purity, and piety. Her lecture-room was 
crowded with the best intelligence of Alexandria. 
But she disputed the authority of priestcraft, and 
taught the newer Platonic philosophy instead of 
worshipping the Virgin Mary. The spirit thus mani- 
fested in the early church has continued more or less 
active to the present day. If the primitive church 
at Jerusalem was persecuted by Jewish priestcraft 
and cruelty, the successors of that church have more 
than retaliated the wrong. Through all succeeding 
ages the mournful wail of the oppressed Jew has 
been heard, as plaintive and despairing throughout 
Christendom as it was by the rivers of Babylon. The 
enfranchisement of the Jew from the Christian's curse 
is but a recent event, and even yet the conscientious 
followers of Moses meet no Christian fellowship in 
any land. I know it is denied that St. Cyril insti- 
gated the murder of Hypatia. There can be no 
doubt that he did nothing to punish it, or that he 
Instituted similar persecution of the Jews, or that he 
sanctioned the murder of Orestes, a Christian pre- 
fect, or that the dominant creeds of the churches 
have in some form more or less severe held it a virtue 
to oppose scientific study, and too often persecuted 
those who resisted their authority in this matter. 
Five hundred years before Christ, heathen Athens 
exiled Anaxagoras for teaching that the sun was not 



BRUNO. 109 

the god Apollo, but a globe of fire, and an eclipse 
of its light but the shadow of a passing planet in- 
stead of Apollo's frown. Sixteen hundred years 
after Christ, the philosopher Bruno was burned at 
Rome as an atheist for asserting that the heavenly 
bodies were regulated by law, which was denied by 
the church, then claiming to embody and represent 
the Christian intelligence and authority of the age. 
Bruno was respected in every school of Europe ; he 
had been the welcome guest of Sir Philip Sidney ; 
was a critic of Shakespeare, and warm admirer of 
Luther ; yet he was expelled as a heretic from Geneva 
and burned at Rome. Only within a few years a 
suitable epitaph has been permitted on his tomb. 
It was the church then dominant, which claimed to 
be the depository of all knowledge and the almoner 
of all grace, that thus forbade the exercise of free 
thought and study of God's laws, whether in the ma- 
terial or spiritual world. It was this arrant ignorance 
and crass theology dominant as religious truth that 
enabled a hierarchy professing peace on earth and 
good-will toward men to burn a philosopher it could 
not silence, to suppress the discoveries of Copernicus, 
and silence Galileo by impending torture. 

It is estimated by an orthodox commentator 
(Barnes) that more than fifty millions of men, 
women, and children have been sacrificed by the 
church of Christ during its temporal dominance, as 



no THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

victims to a disputed faith. We are filled with 
horror when we read of fanatics in Dahomey or 
India being voluntarily but ignorantly sacrificed to 
honor a false religion, which, after all, must be more 
acceptable to God than this Moloch of sacrifice to 
maintain the new dispensation. 

It was not Rome alone which thus denounced 
free thought and persecuted men. Luther also de- 
nounced Copernicus as an upstart astrologer, and 
the mild Melancthon stigmatized all who held to the 
heliocentric law of nature as utter reprobates. Cal- 
vin, Wesley, and others of less note and later date, 
denounced this law as atheistic and opposed to Bible 
truth. It is now well estabhshed that soon after the 
death of Luther (1540) Servetus was burned in 
Protestant Geneva for heresy, and Calvin furnished 
the evidence on which he was condemned. Melanc- 
thon apjDroved the execution, but favored an easier 
death than by fire. Such facts show that ignorance 
persecuting intelligence was not a spasmodic neces- 
sity of statecraft, but a dogma of the church itself. 

It is but two or three centuries since increased 
knowledge of the laws of life released the Christian 
church from the shame and sin of burning, drown- 
ing, and hanging men, women, and children on pre- 
tence of witchcraft or selling their souls to Satan by 
bloody compact. 

These executions prevailed 111 America and 



WITCHCRAFT. Ill 

throughout Europe. Faith in these demoniacal 
possessions was as much a behef in the Christian 
church as it is now in pagan lands. 

This belief in witchcraft, though an offspring of 
ignorance, was retained in the church by religious 
delusions, and became a part of religious faith, even 
when civil authority was called in to execute the 
will of misguided fanatics. It was like the high-priest 
calling in Pilate as a better instrumentality to exe- 
cute a sentence already determined. 

In Scotland these executions v/ere managed by 
the Holy Kirk, which, though forbidding marriage 
on Sunday as a sacrilege, burned witches on that 
day as acceptable service. 

After fifteen hundred years of Christian influ- 
ence, men were tried on the most ridiculous pre- 
tences ; men, women, and children were condemned, 
on testimony, and executed as being confederates 
with the devil, to obtain power to bedevihze 
others. 

In the year A.D. 1516 five hundred persons were 
burned at Geneva in four months for witchcraft. 

In and near A.D. 1524 over one thousand were 
burned in the diocese of Como. 

In A.D. 1520 over twelve hundred were put to 
death in France. 

From 1580 to 1595 nine hundred perished in Lor- 
raine ; from 1627 to 1629, one hundred and fifty- 



112 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

seven in Wurzburg, and thirty out of a population 
of six hundred at Lindheim. 

About this time a horse which had been taught 
tricks by his master was arrested and tried by the 
Inquisition in Lisbon as being possessed of a devil, 
and, having been found guilty, was burned. 

Thus while the pope was burning Bruno at Rome 
for knowing too much of God, his satellites were 
burning a horse at Lisbon for knowing too much of 
Satan. 

It is well known that papal edicts have been 
issued against rats, flies, locusts, and other creatures 
which came in swarms to threaten serious damage.* 

In A.D. 1 1 20 the bishop of Laon (France) pro- 
nounced an injunction against caterpillars and field- 
mice after a regular trial. 

From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century 
there are numerous examples of proceedings against 
hogs which had devoured children. 

Full details of a trial of this kind In 1494 exist, 
wherein is set forth that the hog was duly sentenced 
and strangled on a gibbet. 

In 1497 a sow was tried and condemned to be 
beaten to death for having eaten off the chin of a 
child in the villao-c of Charonne. 



* Sec, for trials of hogs, mice, locusts, etc., y\y'///<;r Siirtit-e 
Alonthly, vol. xvii. p. 621. 



ANIMALS CONDEMNED. II3 

The execution of these animals was pubHc and 
solemn : sometimes they were clothed like men. 

In 1386 the judge at Falaise condemned a sow 
to be mutilated in the leg and head, and afterward 
hung. 

Bulls were also condemned to the same fate. 

In 1587 law proceedings were instituted against a 
beetle that made great ravages in the vineyard of 
St. Julien. 

These insects first appeared in 1545, and the court 
proceedings began ; but, for a wonder, the beetles 
disappeared, and the suit was abandoned. 

When, however, they re-appeared, forty-two years 
after, the suit was resumed and continued for some 
time, with several ridiculous episodes, demurrers, 
etc., common in civil suits: one of which was that 
no process of expulsion could be issued in favor of 
any parish until all tithings due to the church were 
paid. 

About 1 22 1 to 1229 the bishop of Lausanne or- 
dered the eels of Lake Leman to confine themselves 
to a certain part of the lake. 

In one case of offending leeches a number were 
brought into court to hear their sentence read. 

A history of the Swiss reformation, by De Ruchat, 
describes the trial of cockchafers in Lausanne, in 
which, the counsel for the cockchafers not appear- 
ing, the case went by default, and the insects were 



114 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

excommunicated in the name of the Holy Trinity 
and of the Blessed Virgin. 

The same author relates another case wherein a 
miraculous image was witness against a pig, which 
was accordingly sentenced and killed. 

Toward the end of the seventeenth century birds 
of prey, and, in one instance, superabundant doves, 
were excommunicated in Canada. 

If these details of inquisition on animals and in- 
sects, which might be greatly extended, were not 
well authenticated, they would be too ridiculous to 
believe as the theology of a church dominant for 
from twelve to fifteen hundred years after Christ. 

But these sad details of superstition are but a 
faint background to the sadder and far more preva- 
lent details of persecuting immortal men. 

It is estimated that over one hundred thousand 
human beings were executed for witchcraft in Ger- 
many, mostly by burning. 

In 1562 a statute of Queen Elizabeth declared 
it a crime to be possessed^ whether others were in- 
jured thereby or not. 

In 1634 a priest was burned in London for be- 
witching all of the nuns in a nunnery. 

In 1654 twenty women were put to death as 
witches in Bretagnc. 

In 1775 nine old women were burned in KaHsh 
(Poland) for bewitching the lands and crops, causing 



WITCHCRAFT — AMERICA. 1 1 5 

famine, on the same authority by which David, over 
three thousand years before, hung the descendants 
of Saul for causing famine in Judah. 

The same Bible used in this nineteenth century 
to unpulpit ministers and unchurch members of 
churches for heresy was used in like manner in the 
seventeenth century to burn witches. 

As late as 1640, during the Long Parliament, over 
three thousand people were executed for sorcery. 

The Pilgrim Fathers had but recently settled on 
the shores of America, to enjoy their own religious 
liberty, when they began to rule all men and things 
with a theological rod. 

In less than fifty years one hundred and fifty per- 
sons, mostly women and children, were imprisoned 
in one town in Massachusetts for practising witchery. 

Twenty-seven were condemned to death after tor- 
ture or imprisonment, by confession, and others, 
after denial, on proof. 

In September, 1863, a poor old Frenchman died 
in consequence of having been ducked as a wizard 
at Castle Hedingham, Essex, England. 

In all these cases carried to final execution the 
persecutors could plead the inspired law of Moses ; 
but while they obeyed the letter of the law as to kill- 
ing,"^ they violated the law as to the mode of killing. 

* Exodus xxii. 18. 



Il6 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

The law of Moses directed that witches should be 
stoned,'^ whereas the new dispensation preferred 
hanging or drowning, but mostly burning. 

The Bible text " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to 
live" has condemned hundreds of thousands to a 
cruel and brutal death : yet when the Hindoo widow, 
on similar authority of the Vedic scripture (though 
even here the authority is mistaken), performed the 
solemn duty of self-sacrifice by suttee, the church of 
Christianity cries out, " Pagan barbarity ! " though the 
Hindoo widow is a voluntary offering to a mistaken 
devotion, while the witch is the compelled martyr to 
church ignorance and arrogance. 

The woman of Endor was a witch, and Samuel a 
ghost at her bidding. Thus naturally from a per- 
version of Bible latitude innocent ghosts held their 
place in public and religious esteem long after the 
barbarism of witchcraft was cast aside. The c^arly 
reformers generally believed in ghosts. It was sci- 
ence, not theology or Bible, which finally broke the 
delusion. John Wesley, Adam Clark, Richard Wat- 
son, and others believed in ghosts as mediums of 
communication with and visible to mortals. Wesley 
relates three instances in his own experience of warn- 
ings received. The vision of Luther is well known. 
Almost two centuries after the Reformation Balthasar 

* Leviticus XX. 27. 



WITCHCRAFT. II7 

Bakkcr of Amsterdam (1691-94) was dismissed from 
his 2^ost by the ecclesiastical authorities for publish- 
ing a work to root out the superstitious belief in 
witches, enchantment, etc., by which so many lives 
were being sacrificed, three millions being the esti- 
mate of the number of persons burned for that offence. 
It is in consistent keeping with such folly and wicked- 
ness that while the church was burning witches as 
voluntary confederates with the father of Hes, they 
received the confessions and placed entire confidence 
in the testimony of these same witches to implicate 
others, even when extorted by torture or warped by 
insanity. 

Bad as the Mosaic law was, the church made a 
horrid abuse of it. The law of Moses was but a 
civil law relating to open magic and witchery volun- 
tarily practised to delude the people and incite re-» 
bellion against the inspired rules of Moses, and as 
superior to accepted rules of law and government ; 
but the modern church perverted this law of civil 
order to a bigoted and intolerant church oppression. 

When these abuses ceased in the church, it was not 
because the church ever formally abandoned its po- 
sition or repented of its error, but because of grow- 
ing intelligence among the people. 

When scientific culture thus relieved religion of 
this burden, theology trembled lest faith in the Bible 
and all divine inspiration should go with it. 



Il8 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Witchcraft died a natural death in spite of a per- 
verted Bible enforced by a bigoted and barbarous 
theology. 

Is the true Bible revered any less because it ceases 
to be authority for burning the devil out of human 
bodies ? 

Will it be revered any less when it ceases to be 
authority for hunting heresy as a church duty, and 
for delivering souls over to the uncovenanted mer- 
cies of excommunicated culprits? 

No man can estimate the damage done true relig- 
ion not only by killing men, women, and children as 
a punishment for heresy, but also by condemning as 
a crime that true development of soul and spirit 
which can only come of intelligent study. 

Who is there among the many theologians now 
quoting the Bible to punish intellectual heresy, would 
dare to quote it now to punish witchcraft with death? 

Yet the same theology which claimed divine au- 
thority to slay witches is that which now claims like 
authority to excommunicate souls. 

It is but a few years since the same thcolog)-, on 
divine authority, defended slavery in the United 
States. 

Four milHons of human beings were thus bred like 
cattle, raised and worked like cattle, under a system 
which declared that to teach them even to read or 
write was a crime. 



SLAVERY—WITCHCRAFT. II9 

The utter selfishness of the system, its rebelHon 
against civil government as well as moral, finally 
caused its suppression, and not church influence. 

The outraged sentiment of modern civilization, 
expressed largely by men called by the church athe- 
ists and unbelievers, and not the church itself, and 
with but little of the church's formal assistance, put 
an end to the dogma of Noah's curse on Canaan be- 
cause Ham exposed his drunken indecency. 

How many of these same theologians who de- 
fended slavery — a barbarism even in heathen lands 
— and were converted to liberty by the logic of events 
rather than by intelligent conviction, dare now to 
quote the Bible to defend slavery? 

Yet how few of them, notwithstanding this im- 
pressive lesson of their own fallibility and wicked- 
ness, have since that refrained from the same hard- 
ness of treatment toward heretics which they before 
practised toward abolitionists ? 

In regard to witchcraft and anti-slavery, if they 
were great crimes against men and great and grow- 
ing sins in the church, they were practical evils and 
there was some reason in suppressing them, though 
even here the religion of Jesus would question the 
mode of doing it. 

If one person by mere witchery could imperil the 
health and life of another, then that one must be re- 
strained. 



120 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE, 

The question went back to the actual fact of pos- 
session, and this was settled by a big-oted theology, 
until growing intelhgence put a stop to it and dem- 
onstrated that witchcraft itself was but an ignorant 
superstition. 

If abohtion interfered with men's vested rights, 
and by discussion perilled their lives, then it was 
necessary for a free government to suppress aboli- 
tion. The real question was, first, in ' the right of 
one man to enslave another, and no chicanery of 
law or revelation of faith could omit the considera- 
tion of this right in punishing any infringement of 
it, any more than a thief can complain of means 
used to recover goods which he has stolen. 

These hecatombs, aye, myriads of victims sacri- 
ficed to suppress witchcraft and support slavery 
were sacrificed by slavish church tolerance on the 
one hand and bigoted intolerance on the other. 

Thus in these and a multitude of other cases has 
theology obstructed the progress it should have 
promoted, while scientific study in all of its positive 
results has promoted religion. 

Less than fifty years ago, in the Christian land of 
the Puritans, women and children were persecuted 
on account of their color, and those -were perse- 
cuted who endeavored to educate them to a better 
condition. 

In 1832 Trudcnce Crandall attempted to found a 



PRUDENCE GRAND ALL. 121 

boarding-school for colored girls in Connecticut, and 
both teacher and pupils were insulted in the streets, 
mobbed in the school-house, and the teacher was 
finally forbidden by the trustees of a Christian 
church to enter its doors. 

The school was finally broken up as effectually 
and about as brutally as it would have been in the 
Southern States. 

It is sheer absurdity as well as arrant oppression 
to claim religious authority or inspired guidance for 
churches which thus persecute schools for educating 
the ignorant. It is hard to believe them even hon- 
est however ignorant, though even ignorant honesty 
is no excuse for suppressing knowledge or substitut- 
ing a self-satisfied phariseeism for the Bible itself as 
a limit to progress in intellectual or spiritual life. 

The Romish Church to-day outnumbers all of the 
other sects, is opposed to all Bible study in schools 
or out of them except as supervised by her own 
priests, and it is only as compelled by public senti- 
ment that schools are tolerated even under its own 
control. 

Such facts teach us that the Bible alone, at least 
in the fifty millions of the Romish Church, does not 
spiritualize a brutal instinct, and that even Bible 
truth must touch our reason before it can influence 
our life. 

It might be safely affirmed that a dominant 



122 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

church has ever existed opposing progress, and that 
Spain, in her rehgious conquests, barbarously exter- 
minated a better civilization than she substituted, a 
better civilization than then existed in Europe. 

Had the theology of Spain profited by that civili- 
zation instead of crushing it out, the religion of Je- 
sus might have averted that fearful holocaust of 
crime, which, though committed in the name of 
Christ, surpassed all previous experience in cruelty. 

If Mexico and Peru offered human victims, it was 
in loving devotion to the deity they worshipped : 
the victim was a wiUing offering, or, if forced, it 
was a prisoner of war saved from death for sacrifice. 

In neither case was there bitter abuse, excommu- 
nication from covenanted mercies, or a slow death 
by torture, to gratify a demoniacal spirit. 

In Catholic Europe like sacrifices were offered to 
God, not in devotion, but to gratify the most fiend- 
ish passions and to perpetuate the rule of tyrannical 
power. 

To accomplish this the screw, rack, and every tor- 
ture of savage ingenuity were but private preludes 
to the great auto-da-fc, which was a public specta- 
cle to a brutal populace professing the religion of 
Christ. 

After nearly two thousand years of progress, the 
" Index Expurgationes" is the codex of that religion 
wliicli burned Savonarola and Ihnmo, while catc- 



BIBLE DID NOT SAVE ALONE. I23 

chisms and confessions are the finality of the re- 
Hgion which burned Servetus in Geneva, John 
Smith in England, and witches in America less than 
two hundred years ago. 

Thus we see that the Bible alone did not save the 
Jew from the crime of persecution. The Koran, 
though not at first employed as a physical power, 
did not save the Moslem from the use of his scim- 
eter when he, like the Jew, came to regard the earth 
and the heavens as his peculiar heritage. 

The Old and New Testament together did not 
save the church from violence and persecution when 
it assumed to be the sole custodian of religious 
rights, and inspired to interpret the teachings of 
the Holy Spirit, and denied to others that privilege 
of free thought v/hich was made by God in nature, 
and finally by God in Christ, the common inherit- 
ance of every soul. 

The history of past religious organizations of any 
prominence, based upon religious creeds, has been a 
history of persecution, just in proportion to the 
restraint imposed by those creeds and practices 
upon free thought and intellectual development. 

A priesthood or council assuming a spiritual au- 
thority to administer the ordinances of religion 
sooner or later assumes to control as well as to 
administer or refuse them to others, by declaring 
ex cathedra rules of church privilege. 



124 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Under such a system the enjoyment of rehgious 
ordinances as a right ceases. 

Even the sacraments given by Christ as a free 
gift from God are forbidden except as allowed by 
a self-constituted authority, and often by self-elected 
officers, who thus constitute themselves arbiters of 
God's grace and judges of men's souls. 

The spectacle of an intelligent man or woman 
applying for permission to make an open profession 
of faith and to honor God in proper ordinances 
being held back while the apphcation is being dis- 
cussed, and then such applicant being compelled to 
go before church officers often unfit for such an 
office, and there to be catechized, voted upon, and 
finally adjudged as to the soul's inner experience, is 
a spectacle more befitting the days of Torquemada 
and the Inquisition than the nineteenth century of 
synods and councils. 

That a child eight or ten years old can explain its 
views intelligently, or intelligently accept or under- 
stand the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, 
or Vicarious Atonement and other church require- 
ments, is an absurdity. 

To require a profession of such belief is to teach 
hypocrisy and self-righteousness as the first step to 
a public confession of faith. 

It was not thus the Saviour took little children 
in his arms and blessed them. 



CHURCH EXAMINATION. 12$ 

It was not thus he instructed the elders when he 
said to them, '' Of such is the kingdom of heaven." 

Christ says, " / am the way, and the truth, and 
the hfe." 

Theology says, "/am the way, and the truth, and 
the Hfe." 

Christ says, " Come unto me, all ye that are weary, 
and I will give you rest." 

Theology says, '* Come and be examined, and if 
worthy I will give you rest." 

Christ says, '' Believe in me and ye shall be 
saved." 

Theology says, " Believe in me and ye shall be 
saved." 

The othodox minister preaches from the pulpit, 
" Come to Jesus; come now ; come just as you are ; 
come with your guilt and sin oppressed ;" but he 
closes the exhortation with a notice to meet the 
church officials at a stated time and be examined in 
theology. 

As before remarked, church creeds and rules 
would all be well enough if used for the intelligent 
development of co-operating Christians, or the en- 
listing of the careless and thoughtless in church 
work ; but Avhen creeds and confessions are made 
essential to a public profession of Christ, and used 
as closed bars instead of open gates to God's sanc- 
tuary, they become taskmasters instead of school- 



126 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

masters and compel men to " make bricks without 
straw." 

The human heart is still deceitful above ail things, 
and theology without love, or a church without 
understanding, now, is the same law without judg- 
ment, mercy, or justice which stoned Stephen nearly 
two thousand years ago. 

The same bigotry that led Saul of Tarsus to per- 
secute men, women, and children, because they 
were Christians, also delivered Hymenaeus and 
Alexander to Satan, because they were heretics.^ 

The same church and human nature, unrestrained 
by intelligent religion, that first tortured and then 
sacrificed human beings for heresy, as an acceptable 
service to God, all along the ages, would do the 
same now if it had the power. It is the advance- 
ment of science and the diffusion of knowledge 
among the people which has so greatly retrieved 
the Christian church from demoniacal possessions. 

It may be perfectly true that science is not re- 
ligion, but it is equally true that knowledge and 
expansion of mind does fit man for a higher intui- 
tion of God, and the contracted theology which 
ejects men from the following of Christ for heresy 
now is precisely the same theology that burned 
men for heresy during the mediaeval ages. 

* I. Timothy i, 20. 



MEN KEPT FROM GOD. 12/ 

In the cure of such evils a growing intelligence 
must be allowed to act as a renewed inspiration. 
Thus many sinful things, once allowed because of 
the hardness of men's hearts, will be eliminated 
under the influence of better intelligence and free- 
dom of religious thought. Thus, garments dripping 
with the blood of the saints have been stripped 
from the church, and religion appearing in more 
beautiful array is the evangel of a new hope. The 
rack and stake are no longer handmaidens of Christ. 
Witchcraft is no longer a question for church sur- 
veillance, demoniacal possession is no longer adju- 
dicated in church councils, and, with at least half the 
church professing the same God and Saviour, relics 
and priestly charms have ceased to be a stock in the 
trade of souls. 

The leaven of theological rule, however, still fer- 
ments in the church. Man is still human, and 
Christianity has not as yet succeeded in discard- 
ing its selfishness or in fully profiting by its spirit- 
ual and intellectual parts. The lower elements of 
human nature are still nurtured as religious guides. 
The higher elements of the spirit, seeking liber- 
ty in Christ, are yet trammelled by traditions of 
r.ijn. While honest inquirers after God in Christ 
are forbidden His feast until they subscribe to 
a creed of many mysteries. By a law of our nature, 
such a course constantly repels intelligent member- 



128 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

ship from church organizations, and encourages zeal 
without knowledge as a controUing element of 
organization and work, when this zeal without 
knowledge is promoted to government. 

An office in the church stirs up strife, and from 
time to time ferments the leaven of self-righteous- 
ness, and magnifies heresy into a spiritual goblin to 
frighten the souls of men, though it has no longer 
the power to roast their bodies. That this is true is 
seen in the open parade of this medieval church 
gobhn in trials for heresy, even on points of behef 
about which the most learned and righteous men 
have differed, from the time Paul withstood Peter 
at Antioch, or Peter and John rebaptized the dis- 
ciples of Philip of Caesarea. The names of such 
men as Barnes, West, Tyng, Blauvelt, ]\IcCune, 
Cree, Swing, Miller, are familiar to this generation, 
and but a tithing of the offering up of religion to 
theology in our own day. 

It cannot, therefore, be denied that a narrow and 
proscriptive theology is a prominent, often a con- 
trolling, element in almost c-cvy branch of the 
Protestant Church. Thus it not only excludes nicn 
from the enjoyment of the privilege secured b}- 
Christ and sealed with his blood, but excommuni- 
cates righteous men for an honest change of doc- 
trine made on prayerful examination. 

The punishment in those and similar cases not 



EXCOMMUNICATION. 1 29 

mentioned was all that the State laws of this nine- 
teenth-century civilization would permit, and in the 
case of Blauvelt, condemned by the Dutch Re- 
formed Classis of New York, there was a parting 
blow given to his expulsion by calling him a traitor 
to Christ, as well as a heretic to the Dutch Re- 
formed faith. The spirit that would torture the 
soul of the conscientious, useful minister of the gos- 
pel, by proclaiming him to the world as a traitor to 
Christ, would have tortured his body as well, but for 
the law of a better humanity restraining them. Ah, 
no, Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno, Savonarola, Servetus, 
Huss, Luther, Cranmer, Latimer, are not the only 
representative names which bring proof of a church 
ruling without charity, or a theology without mercy. 
The world moves on : the faults of a passing age 
are ever beacon-lights of warning to the ages yet to 
come. The lash of scorpions in the mediaeval 
church is but the lash of tongues in the church of 
to-day. The Maranatha of the greater excommuni- 
cation has given way to the Anathema of the lesser. 
We may fondly hope that intelligence will continue 
to spread among the people, and new light will 
dawn to enlighten the mind. Then will the Bible 
be better read, and in the light of reason be better 
understood. Then will the gospel be a call of glad 
tidings to the mercy-seat of Christ, instead of a sum- 
mons to the judgment hall of Caiaphas and Pilate. 
God will at last rescue His jewels and set them in 



130 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

crowns for His kingdom. The ashes of martyrs 
will be gathered, the excommunicant will be re- 
stored, and their heresy will be the heritage of a bet- 
ter harvest. Statues of Galileo, Bruno, Savonarola, 
Servetus, Huss, and Luther will stand grouped with 
other men of honor, as tribute to both science and 
religion, under the dome of St. Peter's at Rome. 

Then, too, the mantle of charity will cover the 
Synod of New Jersey, the Episcopal diocese, the 
Dutch Reformed Classis of New York, and the 
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of 
the United States, for it will rest on the tombless 
grave of a dead theology. Then even the '' pretty 
flowers" and '' pretty stars" will teach, unrebuked, 
their lesson of love to God and brotherhood to 
man. For the flowers will bloom and the stars will 
shine on forever, as the sun itself shines and the rain 
falls alike on the just and the unjust, as everlasting 
witnesses of God's untiring mercy and unending 
love to the children of men, even while yet sinners 
in His sight. 

Then will come to pass the prophetic psalm of 
the sweet singer of Israel : " O Lord our Lord, how 
excellent is Thy name in all the earth ! . . . . 
When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Th)- fin- 
gers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast 
ordained ; what is man, that Thou art mindful of 
liim ? and the son of man, that Thou visitost him ?""^* 

* Ps. viii. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Moses and his Successors. 

If we were still inclined to question the necessity 
of a scientific knowledge of things as a Christian 
virtue, the Bible itself would answer the question, 
for from Genesis to Revelation the sacred Scrip- 
tures enjoin men to study the works and ways of 
God. This study men call science. When Christ 
said, " Search the Scriptures," it was in direct con- 
trast to, and in correction of, the prevaiHng theology, 
which was based upon the traditions of men, and 
the rabbinical and priestly interpretation thereof. 
It was an appeal from human to divine teaching, 
from a priestly to a personal application. When 
Moses called the congregation of Israel before the 
mountain to hear what God would say, it was an 
entire reform upon the worship of Egypt, the litera- 
ture and learning of which was a mystery to the 
people, and only explained by the priest as suited 
his purpose. Moses reversed all this : required the 
people to be taught in all their cities; reserved 
for the priesthood only the ordering of the taber- 
nacle and temple services. The great truths of 
religion were revealed to all the people. In carrying 



132 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

out this revelation, in forcing a purely monotheistic 
worship, he enjoined historical study by requiring 
them constantly to recall all God's dealing with 
them, the bondage from which He delivered them; 
not only this, but all previous history. The in- 
junction was, '' Remember the days of old, con- 
sider the generations of generations : ask thy 
father, and he will show thee ; thy elders, and they 
will tell thee. When the Most High divided to 
the nations their inheritance, when He separated 
the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the peo- 
ple," * 

Moses was skilled in the learning of Egypt, and 
unless we impeach the wisdom of God we must ad- 
mit that he was thus better fitted to be a leader of 
Israel and the founder of a new confederacy. He 
tells the people that all things in heaven and upon 
the earth are of one God : the wonders performed in 
Egypt, the walled-up waters of the sea which per- 
mitted His people to pass over, and the returning 
waves which overwhelmed the pursuing enemies, 
were by the breath of His nostril ; the daily manna 
to feed them, the ever-flowing water to refresh them, 
the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by 
night to guide them, were but the present manifes- 
tations of that omnipotent Jeho\'ah ^\■ho liad re- 

* Dcut. xxxii., 7, S. 



ISAIAH — AMOS. 133 

vealed Him in mercy from the beginning of time. 
Isaiah tells us that '' God sitteth upon the circle of 
the earth." ^' He stretcheth out the heavens as a 
curtain," and through ignorance of these things na- 
tions perish. ''They have no knowledge that set up 
the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a 
God that cannot save." * 

Amos the prophet, in comforting the stricken 
people, refers them to the wonderful works of God, 
and illustrates His power and continuance by the 
Pleiades and Orion as proofs of universal goodness. 

How many theologians of to-day, while speaking 
lightly of astronomical science, could explain the 
application or force of this beautiful figure by the 
shepherd-prophet of Tekoa ? 

'' For, lo. He that formeth the mountains and 
createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is 
His thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and 
treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The 
Lord, The God of hosts, is his name."f 

The Bible itself furnishes an example of the earli- 
est instruction in mere scientific details of human 
art. Passing the beautiful order of creation, after 
which '' the Lord God made coats of skins" for Adam 
and Eve, we find the science of music a matter of 



* Isaiah xl. 22; Amos v. 8; Isaiah xlv. 20. 
f Amos iv. 13. 



134 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

record : the name of Jubal preserved as the inventor 
of the organ, whose swelling notes still sound the 
Creator's praise in the sanctuary. 

The harp, afterward so sweetly tuned by David's 
hand, is still the human emblem of angelic praise. 

Tubal Cain was not only a worker but an " in- 
structor of every artificer in brass and iron." After 
this, when God directed Noah to build the ark, He 
said unto him, '' This is the fashion thou shalt build 
it," and the fashion as given was a scientific plan 
adapted to the purpose. Bezaleel and Aholiab, who 
erected the tabernacle and made all the vessels and 
ornaments for decoration and worship, were the 
first-mentioned sculptors of repute, and their excel- 
lence is recorded by Moses as the gift of God.^ They 
not only designed cunning work in gold, in silver, in 
brass, the setting and cutting of stones, the carving 
of wood, but they executed the finest of their own 
designs. They designed the tabernacle of the con- 
gregation, the ark of the testimony, the mercy-scat, 
the candlestick, the altars of burnt-offering and in- 
cense, and all the furniture thereof, the cloth of ser- 
vices and all embroideries, the holy garments of 
Aaron and his sons, the oil in the incense. 

In later times, when the wanderings of Israel were 
ended and a permanent place of worship was rc- 

* Exodus xxxi. 3, xxxv, 35. 



TEMPLE SERVICE. 1 35 

quired, the design was not left to ignorant blunder- 
ers, but God Himself inspired the plans. He in- 
structed David, we are told, in the pattern of the 
porch and houses thereof ; the treasuries, the upper 
chambers, the inner parlors ; the place of mercy-seat ; 
the courses of the priests and Levites ; the work of 
the service; the vessels of the service, the candle- 
sticks, the lamps, the tables, the flesh-hooks, bowls, 
basins, and cups ; the altar of incense and sacrifice ; 
the spread wings of the cherubim and their chariot ; 
the stone and timber for building ; the gold, silver, 
jewels, and precious stones for ornament ; the linen 
and wool for weaving and embroidery — everything 
for the temples and the service therein. All this 
David gave to Solomon as his last legacy, and said 
to him, " All this the Lord made me understand in 
writing by His hand upon me, even all the works of 
this pattern." ""'• Whether all this was given to David 
in the handwriting of the Lord, as he seems to say, 
or obtained by study, it was given to Solomon as in- 
formation to know and understand, as applied to the 
divine worship and embracing a knowledge of archi- 
tecture, designing, engraving, and almost every de- 
partment of fine arts. 

A careful study of the building of the Temple will 
develop among other details that it was finished 

* I. Chron. xxviii. 19. 



136 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

without debt before it was dedicated to the Lord. 
The Bible is full of collateral evidence, as well as 
specific instances independent of mere human rea- 
soning, that God requires men everywhere to use 
and develop the intellect in every department of 
knowledge, and to do this as a part of the religion 
we profess. It is not enjoined that every man of 
education should be a scientist or every Christian 
should be a Pauline theologian ; but if, as Solomon 
says, " the love of the Lord makes glad the under- 
standing heart," let us get the understanding heart 
as the basis of love to the Lord. 

In one sense it is also true, as stated by Solomon, 
that '' the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wis- 
dom," but in the same sense we may affirm that the 
perfection of wisdom is the perfection of love. '' A 
wise man will hear and will increase learning, and a 
man of understanding shall attain unto wise coun- 
sels." * When wisdom entereth into thine heart, 
and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, discretion 
shall preserve thee : to deliver thee from the way of 
the evil man, that thou mayest walk in the wa}' of 
the good."f ^' Happy is the man that findcth wis- 
dom, and the man that gcttcth understanding: for 
the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise 
of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is 

* Prov. i. 5. f Prov. ii. 10, 11, 12, 20. 



SOLOMON. 137 

more precious than rubies : and all the things thou 
canst desire are not to be compared to her. Length 
of days is in her right hand ; and in her left riches 
and honor. Her ways are pleasant, and her paths are 
peace." * These lessons Solomon enforces by the 
further fact that God Himself " by wisdom has 
founded the earth, by understanding hath He estab- 
lished the heavens."'!' That this wisdom and under- 
standing is not merely a time-accomplishment He 
further teaches by such passages as, '' He that get- 
teth wisdom loveth his own soul." if This we know 
was the wisdom and understanding which Solomon 
chose for himself when the Lord appeared to him at 
Gideon and offered him the choice of blessings. 
With his choice the Lord was so well pleased that he 
promised to add also the lesser pleasures of the 
body, for which Solomon had not asked. Solomon 
asked for that understanding and knowledge we are 
all required to seek — a wisdom and knowledge to 
perform properly those duties which are required of. 
us in our station in life. We do not want a self- 
satisfaction that whatever we do is well done ; not a 
mere sensation, profanely called the inner experience, 
of a " higher life." Either of these thrive better with 
ignorance ; thrive only in man's lower nature, where 
selfishness and self-conceit predominate. A mere 

* Prov. iii. 13-17. f Prov. iii, 19. ^ Prov. xix. 8. 



138 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

emotional experience without a proper foundation 
in real knowlege may encourage a false hope or an 
equally improper despair. The false hope is born of 
self-wrought emotion, and a wicked despair is born 
of the same parentage, and are alike derogatory to 
God's goodness, justice, and truth. The too fre- 
quent poHcy of preaching a religion above reason, 
on the basis of emotional experience, and rushing a 
sensational conversion through an excited com- 
munity, as is too often done under the name of 
evangelistic work, is but a travesty of the religion 
taught by Moses for Christ, and but for the igno- 
rance so often prominent would merit Carlyle's epi- 
thet of gospel dilettanteism. Enthusiasn is not 
knowledge, nor emotion understanding, even in re- 
ligion : these are aids in their proper place, neces- 
sary helps, but alone are as blind guides to the way 
of life, and very likely become a stumbling-block 
both to Jew and Gentile. The study of wisdom 
here enjoined must not, however, be mistaken for 
that mere worldly wisdom which Solomon and 
prophets alike condemned in early ages of the 
church, or the craftiness and cunning of which Paul 
warned the Corinthian church in later days. Paul, 
writing to Timothy, meets this question precisely 
when he says, '' O Timothy, keep that which is 
committed to thy trust [that is, the gospel as given 
by Christ], avoiding vain babblings [that is, the more 



VAIN BABBLING. 1 39 

sensational notion of man], and oppositions of sci- 
ence falsely so called : which some professing have 
erred concerning the faith." "^ It was not science he 
was to avoid, but false science, which, it seemed 
from this advice to Timothy, was a fault of preach- 
ing then as it is now. 

* I. Timothy vi. 20. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Bible. 

In the acquisition of knowledge as here advo- 
cated, by studying the laws of nature, we are by no 
means to omit a like scientific study of the Bible ; 
for, however men may differ as to the prophetic in- 
spiration of the Bible, there can be no notev/orthy 
objection to it as a reliable record of the evolution 
of the earliest known rehgion, and the civil history 
of a most important portion of the human race. 
As a record of what was known from age to age of 
manners, customs, government, religion, and science 
it is invaluable, but its value depends upon a scien- 
tific study of its entire contents and not a parrot- 
like repetition of selected texts. We are prone to 
forget that the Bible is not a single book but several 
books, written by different men living centuries 
apart, and these different books have been selected 
and compiled from a mass of manuscripts onl}' in or 
near these last days, called the '* fulness of time." 

A knowledge of religion, therefore, either past or 
present is not to be had complete by reading any 
one book of the Bible, nor is any entire theology to 
be founded upon any one book. It is onl}- by a 



BIBLE-CREATION. I4I 

scientific study of the Bible as a whole we can 
generalize about religion or specify about creeds. 
To study the Bible scientifically requires collateral 
knowledge of the times, acquirements, customs, 
other facts of the age and people, of the different 
eras embraced in the record. This does not con- 
stitute the Bible a book of science or scientific 
authority as to ultimate facts not so specified, but 
the incidental mention of facts, if understood prop- 
erly, is often a key to explain supposed difficulties 
and discrepancies which arise solely from ignorance 
and a false reverence for the mere verbiage of the 
Bible, as well as a false impression of what the Bible 
is intended to teach. 

The Bible is not a book of geology, but those who 
scoff at geology as affirming an order of creation 
would do well to study their Bible without preju- 
dice. The first chapter of Genesis, whether read as 
a general outline of creation or as a mere panoramic 
vision of events, is in its important and general suc- 
cession the same as that given in geology. 

The difference in detail is no more than will al- 
ways exist where one description is incidental to the 
main object in view, and the other a specific study. 

The object of the creation narrative in Genesis 
seems to be to reveal God as the Creator of all 
things, but especially to introduce man as the per- 
fection of all created things and his relation spirit- 



142 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

ually to God. To this end it is declared that at the 
first step everything was without form and void. 
This is the starting-point of the nebular theory. 

2d. Darkness was upon the face of the deep. This 
is not disputed by speculative geology. 

3d. Light was, and then light was divided from 
darkness. This also geology affirms. 

4th. There was a firmament, an atmosphere, 
which divided the waters below from the waters 
above. Geology accepts this. 

5th. The waters under the firmament were gather- 
ed together and dry land appeared. Geology accepts 
this order of events and calls it, as the Bible does, 
sea and land. 

6th. The earth put forth grass, the herb yielding 
seed and the tree yielding fruit. This order is also 
assumed in almost every theory of vital develop- 
ment, and corresponds with the coal-forming period 
of science. The atmosphere, as yet loaded with 
carbon and thus unfit for animal or human life, was 
very fatness to the vast ferns and mosses, which 
grew like giants to the low clouds that bathed in 
kisses their spreading tops. 

7th.- The heat and light of the sun, that to igno- 
rance miHit seem made for nauq-ht and wastincr, 
through these a^ons of primeval time, before a living 
soul could enjoy the blessing, were thus absorbed in 
the profuse vegetation and stored as fossil coal, fit- 



CREATION. 143 

ting the earth for man, that he might not only enjoy 
the present heat and hght, but also the heat and 
light of primeval ages. 

As the next step in creative order, we are told, 
the sun, moon, and stars, appeared, and were made 
signs for seasons, for days, and for years. This is 
also the period in which the geologist locates the 
direct and unimpeded influence of light upon the 
earth. 

8th. The diffused light which appeared in the 
carbon- and vapor-loaded atmosphere has changed to 
clearer light and clouds of vapor. The proportion of 
constituent parts of the air have changed : the giant 
vegetation dwarfs ; the carbon and vapor upon which 
it fattened have diminished ; and the earth, air, and 
sea are now fitted to sustain not only vegetable but 
animal life, and the waters brought forth abundant- 
ly water fowl and moving creatures ; the earth 
brought forth cattle, birds, and creeping things. 
Even Darwin or Wallace would make no objection 
to this order of events. 

9th. Last of all man appeared, and by the super- 
added breath of the Almighty was made a living 
soul, to have dominion over the beasts of the field, 
the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea. And 
lo, even to the last geology and astronomy object 
not to the order ! 

The Bible narrative taken as a mere sketch, with- 



144 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

out pretence of scientific accuracy of detail, is so 
scientific in its general order and so orderly in its 
progress as to establish beyond question that the 
author knew whereof he wrote, whether by scientific 
study or inspiration matters not. Science is but a 
form of inspiration. 

Nor is there anything here or elsewhere in the 
Bible, unless interpreted by a perverse theology, 
that need to raise a single question of conflict be- 
tween it and science. It was the perverse theology of 
the mediaeval church and not the Bible that incited 
such bitter contention against Copernicus, Bruno, 
and Galileo. The general outline of creation as 
given in the Bible is, first, the creation of physical 
optical phenomena from a chaotic condition ; second, 
chemical changes ; third, vital ; fourth, rational. 

This order of events would be admitted by the 
most extreme evolutionist. There is no necessity 
whatever of a religious discussion on details which 
do not affect our reverence for God or regard for 
our own souls. Nor do theologians themselves, 
who insist lustily on the six solar da}'s of creation, 
observe the seventh day as such an interpretation 
demands. 

If God really rested on the seventh day of the 
week, in commemoration of a completed creation, 
and commanded man so to obscr\-c it forox'cr, no 
observance could be too sacred or severe. Init \\"C 



SEVENTH DAY— TAYLOR LEWIS. I45 

well know that the day is not thus hallowed by a 
Christian in the land, however they may revile one 
who from honest belief keeps it but a trifle less 
ceremoniously but not less reverentially. One of our 
most accomplished Biblical scholars, Prof. Taylor 
Lewis (died 1877), writing as a champion of God's 
word as written in the Bible, and not in the least 
in advocacy of science, argued over twenty years 
ago that the language of Genesis ^' suggests the com- 
ing of one thing out of another," and in set terms 
opposes the Miltonian theory (six days of creation) 
as unscriptural and unreasonable. This was years 
before the word " evolution" was used by Spencer 
or Huxley, or "survival of the fittest," ''natural 
selection," by Darwin and Wallace. The principle 
so often ridiculed in Darwin, that man may have 
descended, or rather ascended, from an inferior 
animal and become man by the addition or develop- 
ment of spirit, was held by an unyielding advocate of 
Bible inspiration as not at variance with the state- 
ments therein. Spontaneous generation even, a doc- 
trine for a time held as nearly proven by the ex- 
periments of Cross, and since revived by Bastian 
(''The Beginnings of Life"), was thus spoken of after 
careful investigation by Prof. Lewis : " There is no 
impiety in the supposition that the divine Word 
which originated and gave law to animal life may 
have commenced its development with certain chem- 



146 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

ical conditions which science may yet discover" (" Six 
Days of Creation"). Prof. Lewis did not accept 
the proof of spontaneous generation as sufficient, but 
saw nothing to object to either in the proposition 
or the experiments. Since then Pasteur, Huxley, 
and more notably Tyndall have clearly shown by 
elaborate and extended investigation that the doc- 
trine of spontaneous generation is not proven, and 
the epithets of frightened theology are entirely 
wasted. It is an arrogant theology and not scientific 
study which puts a limit to the periods of creation 
or the power of God. The scientist seeks to learn 
times, seasons, and days, but cheerfully admits that 
one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a 
thousand years as one day. 

The Bible abounds in poetic measure, and is full 
of the poetic expression of fact as well as of imagina- 
tion; but the Bible is not intended to teach poetic 
measure, and its poetic expression of fact must be 
interpreted accordingly. 

The thousand and five songs of Solomon, the 
psalms of David and later writers, the vocal and in- 
strumental music of the Temple, trained, as David 
tells us, not only with the heart, but with the '* un- 
derstanding also," have come down to us as examples 
of acceptable song, because thus trained and culti- 
vated as well as truthful. 

They arc now types of praise and worship proper 



ASTRONOMY. 1 47 

to express an intelligent adoration, and will prob- 
ably remain through all time as the types to man 
of that heavenly praise in which Christians hope 
to join, and whose anthem will swell louder and 
louder until the whole assembly of the redemed 
shall join in unison. 

The Bible is not a text-book of astronomy, but 
advanced astronomy reveals to us mighty mysteries 
faintly gleaming in Bible expression which to a 
narrow theology seemed unmeaning, but which in 
the light of science give significance to these words 
of David : " How wonderful are Thy works, and Thy 
ways past finding out !" 

The successive discoveries in astronomy show how 
much all knowledge depends for its increase upon the 
studies of successive generations. 

This should teach the most profound theologian 
that he cannot afford to decry the labors of science. 

" For ages men saw the sun rise and set, and by 
past experience alone were assured of its daily re- 
turn. 

Nightly the stars looked forth from the quiet sky, 
minute in space, but mighty in mystery. 

The inquiring astronomer on lonely plain or moun- 
tain-top gazed and pondered. 

At last he noticed the sun moving among the stars, 
•and the stars, too, moving in immeasurable space. 
Long observation confirmed his discovery, and he 



148 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

communicated to his associates the wonders he had 
surmised. 

He passes away, but his faithful follower takes his 
place and nightly stands in the silent vigils of the 
stars. 

Soon he too passes away leaving another sen- 
tinel,"* and added information to the coming watches 
of the night. 

Knowledge accumulates, and new resources aid 
new research. 

A solitary tower is at length erected for better 
observation. 

Soon, from plain and tower, from pyramid and 
mountain-top, an unbroken gaze is piercing deep 
into the dwelling-place of Deity. 

The magic of priestly mummery, then as now, 
often mingles with and obscures the twilight of 
truthful dawn, but the devout astronomer continues 
his endless gaze. 

Pythagoras at last catches glimpses of revolving 
worlds, and Venus and Mercury are supposed to re- 
volve around the sun and not ahead in space. 

The earth, even to unaided vision, is no lon.gcr the 
only centre of motion. 

For two thousand years more, various discoveries 
were added, but the true centre of planetary motion 
baffled the closest scrutiny. Then came Copernicus, 
* From a lecture delivered in Omaha some years ago. 



ASTRONOMY. I49 

after thirty years of toil and suspense, boldly aban- 
doned the earth as a centre of motion, and, launching 
his thoughts forth through space, settled on the sun 
as the sure and only centre of planetary motion. 
Tycho Brahe collected a vast number of observations. 
Kepler reduced these to three great and beautiful 
laws, now known by his name. Newton by the law 
of gravitation gave hfe to these researches of the past, 
and by the application of the more fundamental laws 
of mechanics and mathematics gave a firm basis to 
physical astronomy. Galileo, Halley, Herschel, and 
our own Mitchell are but a few of the immortal 
names of the dead past who joined with sleepless 
eye the nightly watch of past ages. The galaxy of 
glorious students that now scan the heavens is too 
numerous to name, and their achievements too ex- 
tensive to specify. But step by step new truths 
dawn, old conclusions are confirmed, instruments aid 
the eye, until at last is revealed the stupendous fact 
that other suns than ours with revolving planets 
form other systems, until suns and systems swarm 
the immensity of space. Stars no human eye can 
count for number are central suns to systems no 
telescopic eye can fathom ; the lonely star-gazer of 
the oriental past has become the Argus-eyed astron- 
omer of a thousand observatories. From the gathered 
observation of centuries at last comes up the stu- 
pendous and almost inconceivable statement that 



I50 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

moon and planet, planet and sun, sun and system, 
are sweeping onward through space at a rate of over 
six hundred milHons of miles each year, and this cal- 
culation comes to us with such mathematical accu- 
racy that there is but one chance in forty thousand 
of a mistake. Where does all this tend, and where 
will this matchless speed finally terminate ? Here 
again the endless night of astronomical toil reveals 
the most sublime speculation ever attained by the 
human mind. To us, the inheritors of the garnered 
intellect of six thousand years, it is announced that 
this magnificent assemblage of worlds innumerable, 
this universe of blazing suns with their attendant 
satellites, ten thousand fiery comets, and millions of 
meteors, are not dashing on at this fearful speed to 
an awful wreck of matter, but are moving in obedi- 
ence to the law of gravitation about a common cen- 
tre. When this splendid cortege in the retinue of 
Jehovah's march shall have sped onward around the 
immense circumference of his course at the rate of 
some seventy thousand miles an hour for over 
eighteen millions of years, one revolution will be 
complete, the pendulum of creation will have swung 
once in the immensity of space, and the elial of the 
heavens will mark one second of created time in tlic 
eternity of God. 

There was momentous meaning in the sublime 
challenge of the Almighty to Job, "Canst thou bind 



GOD TO JOB. 151 

the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands 
of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his 
season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his 
sons?" * 

In view of such wonders revealed in the domain 
of science, and the fact that so many Christians are 
content with mere spiritual emotions, even assume 
such experience to be a sufficient guide to a knowl- 
edge of God, we see the pertinency of God's rebuke 
to Job and his friends — " "Who is this that darkeneth 
counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up thy 
loins like a man ; for I will demand of thee, and an- 
swer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the 
foundations of the earth ? declare, if thou hast un- 
derstanding." f 

Then follows the inimitable summary, almost a 
synopsis of modern physical science, a lecture in 
natural history : the earth and the foundations 
thereof ; the sea and its depths and the foundations 
thereof ; the clouds, spread as a garment over sea 
and earth ; the springs of the sea ; darkness as a 
swaddling-band ; the dwelling-place of light and the 
parting thereof; the treasures of snow and hail; 
the wind blowing where it listeth ; the pathway of 
lightning ; the paternity of rain and dew ; the dust 
of the earth growing into hardness, as clod and 

* Job xxxviii. 31, 32. f Job xxxviii. 2-4. 



152 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

rock ; the lion crouching for his prey ; the goats 
breeding in the rocks; the wild ass ranging the 
mountains ; the horse patient in work, but neighing 
at the battle ; the eagle mounting towards the sun, 
but dwelling on the crag; the hawk with out- 
stretched wings ; the raven wandering for meat ; 
the ostrich hiding its eggs in the sand ; the plumage 
of the peacock ; the feeding of the sparrow ; the 
leviathan of the deep, with, as it were, smoke from 
his nostrils, to whom iron is as straw and brass as 
rotten wood ; the strength of behemoth drinking 
up rivers. Explain these to me, O Job, '* then will 
I confess unto thee that thine own right hand can 
save thee." * Here is a procession of utterances, al- 
most as ancient as man himself, that may teach us, 
even in these latter days, a lesson of intellectual 
cultivation and spiritual humility. 

Well might humbled Job confess, " I uttered that I 
understood not ; things too wonderful for me, which 
I knew not. Wherefore I abhor myself, and re- 
pent in dust and ashes." f Let us humble ourselves 
in dust and ashes, and arise not from our humiHation 
to make broad our phylacteries until, like David, 
we have considered His ways and can sa}^ with the 
publican, as well as Job, "Lord, be merciful to me, 
a sinner." 

* Jobxl. 14. t Job xlii. 3. 6. 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Training of the Prophets. 

According to orthodoxy, the early prophets 
were as nearly inspired, without study, as any 
teacher of spiritual things could hope to be now. 
Yet we find, as early as Moses, they were provided 
with regular instruction ; colleges for the education 
of prophets were organized, probably before the 
time of Samuel, certainly in his time, at Bethel and 
Ramah."'^ In the days of Elijah and Elisha we read 
of colleges at Carmel, Bethel, Gilgal, Jericho, and 
probably at Ramah and elsewhere. f 

Elijah was on a farewell visit to these colleges 
just before his death, :j: and Elisha on taking the 
place of Elijah visited and superintended them. § 

That the students were numerous is evident from 
the fact that fifty of them went out from the school 
at Jericho to seek the body of Elijah. || 

Women were included in these schools, as we 

* I. Samuel x. 5; also xix. 18. 

f II. Kings ii. 3; also iv. 38; also vi. i. 

:j:ll. Kings ii. 1-6. §11. Kings ii. 18-25. 

I II. Kings ii. 17. 



154 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

learn of Hulda being a prophetess in the college at 
Jerusalem, though her husband was but a keeper of 
the wardrobe, probably of the priests.* 

Miriam and Deborah, we know, were prophetesses 
before the time of Samuel, f The wife of Isaiah was 
a prophetess, J and in New Testament times we read 
of Anna as a prophetess, who was also the tradition- 
al mother of the Virgin Mary. § 

These collegiate schools probably ceased with the 
captivity, but synagogue-teaching took their place on 
the return from Babylon, being in one respect a 
radical reform, in that the synagogues, instead of 
nurturing a prophetic aristocracy, were intended to 
disseiT\inate knowledge of the law among the people 
at large. 

A rivalry or difference heretofore existing between 
the prophetic and priestly orders seems to have been 
compromised in the synagogue greatly to the ad- 
vantage of the common people. 

Here grew up Sadducees and Pharisees, as the re- 
maining leaven of the old differences, but with the 
advantage to all that their discussions and disputes 
were before the people, and presupposed an educa- 
tion of the people, competent to judge the merits of 
the argument. 

* n. Kin,^:s xxii. 14. \ Exodus xv. 2o; Judges iv. 4. 

J Isaiah viii. 3. § Luke ii. 36. 



SCRIBES AND PHARISEES. 155 

The Sadducees held to the written law and cere- 
monials, and in this respect represented the priest- 
hood. 

The Pharisees founded a spiritual and hidden 
meaning on unrecorded traditions, held to be more 
sacred than the written law, and transmitted from 
Moses by plenary inspiration of persons rather than 
of writings, which were only directions written out 
from time to time for common use, and did not con- 
tain the secret essence of a divine inspiration. 

When the Pharisees were in the ascendency these 
traditions became authority in religious behef and 
worship more than the written law. 

Both scribes and Pharisees attached more im- 
portance to ceremonial service than to a religious life, 
for, as Christ declared to both scribes and Pharisees, 
they had made void the law of God by the tradi- 
tions of men. * 

Scribe and Pharisee, though professing to teach 
the people, did so as members of a privileged sect ; 
it was on this ground that Christ denounced them 
as on a level with hypocrites. 

The authority of the apostles as teachers for 
Christ was not founded upon inspiration, as is too 
often assumed, but upon the fact of their having 
been eye-witnesses of his acts and ear-witnesses of 
his words. 

* Matthew xv. 6. 



156 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

They were under the daily instruction of Christ 
during his whole ministry ; heard his discussions with 
the lawyers, the scribes, and the Pharisees, where 
all that was either traditional or written was fully 
discussed. 

I think it a great mistake to represent the apostles 
and early disciples of Christ as ignorant men, and it 
probably arose from the fact that they all had trades ; 
but it was a Jewish custom that all men should 
acquire each one a trade, and we find Paul, though 
thoroughly educated, a tent-maker. 

In the time of Christ every village of any size had 
its synagogue and parish school, where each twenty- 
five scholars must have a teacher. 

These parish schools were independent of those 
of the scribes and Pharisees, lawyers and doctors, 
which were of higher grade, and among which the 
schools of Hillel and Shammai were at that time 
famous. 

The disciples were undoubtedly educated in these 
parish schools, and the writings of Matthew, IMark, 
Luke, John, Peter, and James show an acquaintance 
with language and literature as the result of educa- 
tion, not revelation or fishing. 

Their spiritual inspiration, especial!}' after the 
death of Christ, developed their Christian character, 
but their fitness to witness for Christ or to proclaim 
his gospel was accjuircd b\' the dail\' teaching of 



APOSTLES EDUCATED. 1 5^ 

Christ himself and their previously acquired knowl- 
edge of the law, and sufficient intellectual develop- 
ment to apply their knowledge to the purpose for 
which they were called. 

Paul, a great corner-stone of the Christian church, 
was skilled in Mosaic literature, as Moses, his great 
prototype, was skilled in the learning of Egypt. 

Luke tells us that Moses '' was mighty in words" '^ 
as well as deeds. 

Stephen, we know, confounded the disputants of 
a dozen synagogues until they silenced him with 
stones. f 

Philip taught the prime-minister of Queen Can- 
dace ; :j: the New Testament writers compare favor- 
ably with Paul, whose excellence in all literature is 
unquestioned. 

Christianity thus represented boldly confronted 
and confounded not the ignorance but the best in- 
telligence of both Jew and Gentile. 

The triumph of Paul over Tertullus before Felix 
at Caesarea was not greater than that of Peter, James, 
John, and Stephen at Jerusalem, when they met 
lawyers and rabbis of the Sanhedrim and syna- 
gogue and established a new faith on the ruins of 
old tradition. 

At Antioch the faith won its baptismal name, and 

* Acts vii. 22. \ Acts vii. 58. X Acts viii. 27. 



158 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

spread through Asia Minor to Africa and the islands 
of the sea so rapidly that before the first witness 
had ceased to bear living testimony the philosophy 
of Jew and Gentile had commenced a rapid retreat 
before the onward march of Christian faith. 

Christ himself set no example of emotional ex- 
perience alone as a guide for religious life or basis of 
religious faith. 

He began his life as other children. At the age of 
twelve he went up to the Temple and assumed the 
obligations usual at that age ; learned his trade and 
worked at it until by age and information he was 
prepared to enter upon his mission, to all human 
appearance as other men. 

Then his warrant for the truth of his doctrine 
was, " I have not spoken of myself; but the Father 
which sent me. He gave me a commandment, what 
I should say, and what I should speak." ^ " He 
doeth the works." f 

The quotations of Christ from the Greek version 
of the Hebrew scripture showed his familiarity 
with the written word; his discussions with the 
Pharisees revealed a perfect familiarity with the 
traditions. 

It is fully evident from his public life that he 
carefully prepared himself in all the ordinary clc- 

*John xii. 49. f John xiv. lO. 



CHRIST EDUCATED. 159 

ments of human knowledge, as preliminary to his 
human mission and as proper accessory aid to its 
divine end and purpose. 

That Christ studied the works about him In 
nature we know right well by his apt use of simili- 
tudes drawn from natural objects, and his equally 
apt application thereof to enforce great truths he 
desired to teach. 

He did not foreshadow the flippancy of the 
Chicago evangelist by declaring that the line of 
preaching his gospel excluded ''pretty flowers or 
pretty stars.'' 

One of his most beautiful teachings was, " Con- 
sider the lilies of the field, how they grow;""^ and 
his application thereof as a rebuke for human pride 
and vanity was, " Solomon in all his glory was not 
arrayed like one of these." 

In the teaching of Jesus the lily and sparrow 
taught lessons of God's universal providence and 
goodness. 

" If God so clothe the grass of the field, which 
to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall 
He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" 
"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one 
of them shall not fall to the ground without your 
Father." t 

* Matthew vi. 28. f Matthew vi. 30; x. 29. 



l60 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Nor were there any ungrammaticlsms in the carpen- 
ter's Sermon on the Mount, or loose logic in his dis- 
courses with the rabbis. 

He did not emasculate the decalogue to defend 
doing good on the Sabbath, nor mystify the woman 
of Samaria at the well with bigoted creeds of special 
providence. 

Jesus uniformly manifested a knowledge of the 
literature of the day, of the laws of nature, of the 
customs of men, of the courtesies of society. He 
quoted with equal facility and fitness the law and 
the prophets, or the histories and traditions of the 
rabbis. 

He was far from being illiterate in his human 
nature. It was this knowledge which every man 
should desire that enabled him to teach with equal 
force the publican and sinner by the wayside, and 
the scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers in the Temple. 

His spiritual lessons were enforced by references 
to facts in nature. 

The tares and the wheat teach one spiritual les- 
son, the royal supper and wedding garment of the 
great king another. 

The little leaven in the meal of the housewife is 
the spirit of God in the heart of man ; the seed sown 
by the hand of man illustrates the word of God in 
man's intellect. 

In like manner Paul, referring: to the words of 



CHRIST TEACHING PARABLES. l6l 

Christ that *' the righteous shall shine forth as the 
sun in the kingdom of their Father," aptly uses it to 
illustrate his discourse on the resurrection. 

" There is one glory of the sun, and another glory 
of the moon, and another glory of the stars ; for one 
star differeth from another star in glory. So also is 
the resurrection." ^ 

" Then shall the righteous shine forth as the 
sun."'!" 

These references and many others which might be 
added are not superficial in meaning or accidental 
in fitness and force, but evince careful thought. 
Knowledge of the customs of society present and 
past, acquaintance with natural laws, is evident in 
every parable of Christ. 

Alas that we should so often pervert their mean- 
ing by ignorance or presumption ! 

To affirm that this knowledge of Christ and his 
disciples was inspired may be a ready excuse for 
our own ignorance, but would be, if true, a death- 
blow to all the lessons of comfort and consolation 
we receive from his life as the Son of man, to all of 
our hopes through his resurrection and final media- 
tion as the Son of God, 

The principle of living our moral, physical, and 
spiritual life understandingly is not imposed upon 

* 1. Corinthians xv. 41. f Matthew xiii. 43. 



162 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

US simply as a personal consideration ; this would be 
but a selfish inducement. 

Solomon not only says, " A wise man will hear" 
for himself, but adds also that he will *' increase 
learning." * 

If we reject this advice and refuse to assist others, 
we will learn by experience that we are but mem- 
bers of a family ; and that while "fools only despise 
wisdom and instruction" f we will be equally foolish 
if we quietly abide among the unwise and unin- 
structed without seeking their development. 

Whatever of wisdom or intelligence we have is of 
God's good spirit working in us by appointed means, 
and we only follow God's example when we acquire 
knowledge not merely for ourselves but for the 
good of all within our reach. 

Man is a social being : the suffering arising in a 
community from ignorance and sin involves the in- 
nocent and better informed in the evil. 

The criminal must be punished, the poor must be 
cared for, and disease must be remedied, or we 
suffer, even directly, from them in others. 

It is estimated that one half of the out-patients of 
hospitals suffer from diseases induced primarily and 
directly by ignorance. Add to this the diseases in- 
directly induced, and to these the diseases of private 

* Prov, i. 5. f Prov. i. 7. 



GOD TEACHES. 163 

life also arising from ignorance or inherited weak 
ness, and we can readily see that our own responsi- 
bilities are inseparably connected with our fellows. 

The wrecked hopes, the profligate habits, the 
ruined constitutions and blasted lives are not always 
wilful sin, except as they occur through wilful igno- 
rance. 

The prodigal son, the enfeebled child, the sick- 
bed, the squandered fortune, are not special visita- 
tions of God to chasten his children or to punish 
his enemies, but the natural and necessary result of 
violated laws which we should understand and teach 
to our children and dependants. 

The words of Solomon inform us that " When 
wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is 
pleasant unto thy soul, discretion shall preserve 
thee, to deliver thee from evil." * 

The laws of God are from the beginning, but any 
written revelation of their meaning for man is of 
recent date and continuous with human develop- 
ment. 

God teaches. Man studies and records the teach- 
ing; but however knowledge is acquired, whether by 
scientific research of our own or by adopting the re- 
search of others, it is all of God. 

The idea that God teaches us by His works and 

* Prov. ii. 10. 



164 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

ways is as inherent in the human mind as is the be- 
Hef in God Himself ; and further, that this teaching 
is for universal and not for individual benefit. 

We are thus shown the close connection between 
acquired knowledge and an intelligent recognition 
of God either in faith or worship. 

Hence the tradition among all nations of God's 
coming down among men to instruct them. 



CHAPTER X. 

Mythologies, Religions and Reformations. 

In this way special departments of knowledge 
came to be symbolized as personifying special mani- 
festations of Deity to men, 

" Who shall say that to no mortal 
Heaven e'er oped its mystic portal, 
Gave no dream or revelation, 
Save to one peculiar nation ?" 

The great First Cause was rarely if ever embodied 
or personified openly, but subordinate attributes 
were embodied and assumed an influence propor- 
tionate to their importance. 

Jupiter ruled among the Grecian deities and ap- 
peared in various forms among men, but his power 
was not absolute. 

Neptune personified seas, lakes, rivers, and with 
inferior embodiments personified streams, rain, dew, 
etc. 

Tellus was a female personifying the earth and, 
with associate deities, all the productions of the 
earth. 

War was a stalwart warrior known as Mars. 



l66 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Music was a graceful youth, with instruments to 
play, and could charm even inanimate nature. 

Phoebus, in a fiery chariot, personified the sun ; 
Diana, as huntress, the moon. 

Minerva, a noble woman springing armed from 
the head of Jupiter, represented wisdom in peace 
and war, as well as strength. 

This mode of thought and expression in time 
degenerated into a meaningless worship of mere 
imagery. 

The ignorant believed that God manifested Him- 
self to men, in these and a thousand other forms, to 
teach, reward, or punish. 

Temples of worship were erected to these deities, 
and contained oracles which were consulted with 
solemn ceremony, and w^ere supposed to answer 
through the of^ciating priest — not materially differ- 
ent from the manner of the holy of holies and the 
high-priest with the Jews ; but the worship insti- 
tuted by Moses was to one God alone, with only 
one temple and one oracle, the ark and the mercy- 
seat. 

This, though a pure monotheism, ever tended 
strongly to idolatry. 

The early Persian and Hindoo wore also monothe- 
istic, with a strong tendency to pantheism. 

The early Greek was a monothcist, as we loarn 
from Lactantius, Diogenes, Laertius, and Aulus Gel- 



DIFFERENT RELIGIONS. 167 

lius, but with a tendency to polytheism, and finally 
anthropomorphism. 

Early Egypt was also monotheistic, with a ten- 
dency to naturalism, but in its worship of Osiris pre- 
figured the most beautiful feature of Christian faith. 

Osiris was the Redeemer from sin and the final 
judge of the sinner. 

What judge could be more merciful than the Re- 
deemer himself ? 

China was also monotheistic, and there the ten- 
dency was to rationalism. 

The religion of these early nations and a knowl- 
edge of their growth and decline are not matters of 
indifference even to a highly spiritualized Chris- 
tianity. 

These religions have acted for six thousand years, 
and still act, an important part in the history of a 
majority of the inhabitants of the world. 

Christianity after nearly two thousand years has 
but carried the outworks of heathen religions, and 
in one notable era, after being established over large 
sections of country, has itself retreated from its 
possessions. 

Cities and nations in Asia and Africa, where Chris- 
tianity once prevailed almost without a rival, are 
now devoted to the platitudes of Buddha or the 
superstitions of Islam. 

Even in Catholic Europe the Romish and Greek 



l68 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

churches embrace more than half of Christendom, 
and the remainder is divided into sects almost in- 
numerable. 

We learn from these facts that religious institu- 
tions as well as civil institutions may degenerate^ 
that church as well as state may disintegrate, and 
that intelligence and wisdom are as necessary to one 
as the other. 

Every religion, however false, if studied in its his- 
tory has a lesson for us to improve. 

We learn, too, the touching beauty of ceremonial 
services and symbohc teaching in the infancy of the 
understanding, whether of individual man or of the 
entire race. 

We learn that symbols, ceremonials, and rituals 
may decorate and preserve a half-developed truth 
until more mature development can understand 
fully and cast aside the outer garments of infancy. 

Fairy stories and legends coming down to us as 
nursery tales, entering into the fancies of child-life, 
are but the religious faith of the earlier develop- 
ments of the human race. 

A knowledge of early and progressive religious 
faith, as determined by rigid study, would explain 
much that still mystifies the common mind in the 
religion of to-day. 

It is a correct knowledge of the progress and evo- 
lution from a firm faith in fairy myths to a rational 



ORMUZD — AHRIMAN. 169 

understanding of real spiritualistic influence that 
will best explain much that is mysterious and hard 
to understand in the religion of Moses as finally de- 
veloped by Christ. 

We can learn like lessons from every prominent 
religion of the past, if we will attach sufficient im- 
portance to them to study them with scientific ac- 
curacy and impartiality. 

The sacred writings of the Hindoo were written 
in a language until recently unknown to English 
scholars, and were probably contemporary with 
Abraham. 

These scriptures proclaimed a Supreme Being by 
different titles, one of which was Ormuzd, who per- 
sonified Light, Purity, and Truth. 

Opposed to him they recognize Ahriman, the 
principle of Evil or Darkness. 

There was a constant conflict between these, and 
though Ahriman seemed to prevail now, Ormuzd, 
the author of good, was finally to triumph. 

This, it will be seen, differs but little from the 
Miltonian idea of God and Devil, except that our 
theological Devil has an eternal existence, the Hin- 
doo's has not. 

The sacred canon of the Buddhist religion, which 
was an outgrowth or reformation from the older 
Brahmin faith, as Christianity was an outgrowth of 
Mosaism, is now translated into the Sanscrit, Pali, 



l^ro THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Burmese, Siamese, Thibetan, Mongolian, and Chi- 
nese languages, and is thus used by their mission- 
aries for teaching to over five hundred millions of 
souls. 

This is the wall against which Christian missions 
beat, and, like the Chinese wall, it extends around 
the whole empire of Buddha. 

These heathen missionaries are by no means igno- 
rant men, at least not in greater proportion than our 
own, and have among them men who compare favor- 
ably with the scholars of Europe. 

Not many years since, when Keshub Chunder Sen, 
a modern Hindoo philosopher, visited London, he 
there defended his religious faith as a theist by the 
side of Dean Stanley and others of equal note, and 
there quoted not only the Hindoo writings but other 
ancient beliefs, and also Mosaism and Christianity, 
as readily as Paul quoted ancient Greek literature 
and Christianity to the learned Athenians. 

How many of our modern missionaries in the 
land of Chunder Sen could stand by his side and 
quote the Hindoo Vedas and the Avcsta of Per- 
sia, or even the English translation of the Chinese 
classics of Confucius and Mencius ? How man}- who 
flippantly expound the meaning and purpose of the 
Lord in leading Cyrus and Darius to be shepherds 
of scattered Lsracl know that, two hundred }'ears 
before Alexander overthrew Darius and invaded In- 



ZOROASTER— CYRUS — DARIUS. 171 

dia and Persia, the Dhammapoda, a part of the 
sacred canon, claimed to be the very words of 
Buddha himself, proclaimed such maxims as these? — 
** Let man overcome anger by love." " Let him 
overcome evil by good." "Let him overcome the 
greedy by liberality, the liar by truth." " Do not 
yield to anger ; control thy body : with thy body 
practice virtue." "Control thy mind: with thy 
mind practice virtue." 

" A powerful god is Ahura — Mazda. 
'Twas he who made this earth below ; 
'Twas he who made that heaven above ; 
'Twas he who made man."* 

The wide-spread Iranic worship of which Zoroas- 
ter was the prophet, and the Avesta a sacred book, 
was not materially different from the Vedic, either 
in its origin, belief, or degeneracy. 

Ahura-Mazda was the name by which their god 
was known and worshipped, and to whom Arta- 
xerxes, Darius, and Cyrus prayed. The Jehovah of 
the Jew was Ahura-Mazda to the same Cyrus 
called by Isaiah God's shepherd, anointed to re- 
build the desolate temple at Jerusalem. Recently 
read inscriptions on the ruins of Persepolis and 
elsewhere tell us of prayers offered by Xerxes in 

* From the red granite mountain near Ecbatana, written by Da- 
rius 500 B.C. 



1/2 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

his palace to Ahura-Mazda (in modern Persian, Or- 
muzd) which are in spirit, and often in word, such 
as David and Solomon offered to Jehovah in Jeru- 
salem. 

In the Babylonian captivity of the Jews was their 
final rescue from a corrupt idolatry : their captors 
were Monotheists, and schoolmasters to them of a 
better creed than that of Baal and Astharoth, into 
which they had fallen. The sad dirges of the 
daughters of Zion, wailing mournfully by the rivers 
of Babylon, were in reality but preludes to purer 
strains that ever after ascended to Jehovah alone. 

Thus knowledge of God's deahngs with and 
recognition by nations, so intimately connected 
with the Jewish people, has been obtained only by 
patient research and scientific study; it is not the 
inspiration of ignorance, but of acquisition. 

Year after year have men imperilled their lives to 
penetrate the mountain fastnesses and cross the arid 
plains of Asia, to seek out and save the record of the 
almost forgotten past. Such searchers after truth 
have affiliated themselves with the natives, adopted 
their customs, mastered their language, that they 
might thus gain access to temples still sacred in their 
ruins, to monuments of worship, holy caves, and 
search for inscriptions and perchance find a long- 
treasured manuscript. 

Thus one French devotee alone, Anquetil Duper- 



AHURA-WORSHIP. I73 

ron, collected 180 manuscripts of the original Avesta 
and its Zend. Returning to France, he devoted 
the remainder of his life to a careful translation of 
the treasured scriptures. For years he was regarded 
as a fraud, until new research by Rask, Burnouf, 
and others, especially philological research, estab- 
lished the authority of the scriptures beyond further 
question. Here, in a language older than the cunei- 
form inscriptions of Xerxes, we find in the moun- 
tains and valleys of the Asiatic world Ahura-Mazda 
worshipped as the father of all pure creation, who 
made a pathway from the sun, who ordered the 
waxing and waning moon in its orbit, held the earth 
in the hollow of his hand, suspending over it the 
clouds, guiding the winds, and giving bounds to the 
sea. This worship degenerated to fire-worship, and 
finally to idolatry. But the idea of one god has 
never been utterly lost, and a revival there to-day, 
on the basis of the ancient faith and the ancient 
Bible of the Aryan race, would at once open up 
these oriental lands to the Gospel of Christ, as the 
last prophet of the race. 

A common use of the Tao-te-King of Lao-tse, the 
fire-king, and four Shun books of Confucius would 
in like manner open up China. The Chinese are 
undoubtedly the oldest race maintaining an uninter- 
rupted national existence, and it is now believed by 
our best scholars that the early religion of China 



174 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

was a pure monotheism and was as universal in 
China as in Israel, without the early Israelitish tend- 
ency to monolatry. Dr. Legge, interpreter of Chi- 
nese classics, thinks Confucius did not clearly teach 
the immortality of the soul, but it is evident this 
doctrine was taught even more clearly by Con- 
fucius than by Moses. Confucius, like Moses, was 
but the reformer of a religion which had degener- 
ated, and, affirming this, took no credit to himself 
for new inspiration. In later generations there 
were three divisions of this religion, not unlike the 
scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees of the Jews. 
They had, and still have, benevolent societies, which 
at times have scarcely been equalled in number 
and variety in Christian lands. 

They have asylums for orphans, for widows, and 
for the aged and infirm ; they have hospitals for the 
sick ; where we have only a society for the preven- 
tion of cruelty to animals, they have an asylum for 
the care of the maimed and helpless. 

Their free schools are more extensive than ours, 
more thorou2:h and better orjjanized ; vet we are 
continually told by both pulpit and press that hos- 
pitals, infirmaries, public charities, and free schools 
date from the Christian era and are an outcome of 
Christianity." 

* " China and Chinese," by John L. Xcvins. 



CHINA— EDUCATION. 1 75 

There are several free libraries in Japan ; one in 
Tokio contains sixty-three thousand eight hundred 
and forty volumes in Chinese, five thousand one 
hundred and sixty-two in English, and between 
eight and nine thousand in other European lan- 
guages. 

In China there are more than two thousand col- 
leges, common schools innumerable. 

Their libraries outnumber ours ten to one. 

There are more than two millions of highly edu- 
cated men ; in a population of four hundred mil- 
lions there is but a small proportion who cannot 
read and write. 

The great theological school of Islam, founded 
nearly one thousand years ago (a.D. 975), kept in 
the Mosque of El Aza (Mosque of Flowers) at 
Cairo, according to Prof. Dollinger contained but 
five hundred students in 1838, but in 1875 (accord- 
ing to Dr. Ellinwood, of the Presbyterian Board of 
Missions) it contained over ten thousand students 
and over three hundred professors or teachers. 
This statement is confirmed by Dr. Schaff."^ 

These teachers receive no stated salary and subsist 
on meagre fare, which is furnished them by the pu- 
pils, who are generally poor. 

Say what we may as to Moslem degradation, 

* " Through Bible Lands," p. 84. 



176 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Musselmans are a power In theology, if not in re- 
ligion, in almost every pagan land. 

The daily devotion they manifest to a worship 
which they believe to be inspired by a holy Koran, 
and a temperance so remarkable amidst so much 
poverty, dirt, and degradation, might well be imi- 
tated by professing Christians of a higher culture, 
who live in fine houses and look down upon the 
pagan with contempt. 

In Sierra Leone, on the northwestern coast of 
Africa, is another school of one thousand pupils, 
being educated not for an honored priesthood, but 
for a life of missionary labor. 

If Christianity is to compete with such rivals, it 
must be by understanding whatever there is good 
and noble in man, or in his attempt to discover 
God. It must respect their treasured memories of 
better days, and overcome present backsliding, not 
by arousing national hostility to a new faith, but 
by exciting a proper national pride to procure 
the acceptance of a new development of old 
truths, yet honored by tradition as part of a past 
inheritance. 

Such was the spirit of Paul, most notably exhib- 
ited at Athens. 

He did not charge the Greek philosophy with 
idolatry or unbelief ; he did not offend the learned 
men he addressed b}^ denouncing the wickedness o( 



CONFUCIUS. 177 

Athens: he quoted the best of their theology, and 
by that enforced his own. 

He quoted their Hteratnre, and thus gave force to 
that of the prophets. 

The good that is left in any man or nation of 
men, however degraded, is a better influence to re- 
deem from vice and restore to virtue than hard 
names and offensive personalities, however true and 
merited they may be. 

Notwithstanding the degradation of an over- 
crowded population in China, the memory and 
teachings of Confucius have been held in honor for 
over twenty-five hundred years, and his name has 
been cherished amid all the revolutions and changes 
of the empire. 

His posterity have been treated with peculiar re- 
spect, and constitute at this day the only hereditary 
nobility in China with one trifling exception, viz., 
that of Mencius. 

His writings are the text-books of their schools 
and mottoes of state government. 

As the Jews avoided the name of Jehovah, as too 
sacred for common use, so Confucius avoided the 
name for God, and used the general term Heaven 
instead. 

** Have no depraved thoughts," is a text in com- 
mon use ; another of great force is, " He who offends 
against Heaven has none to whom he can pray." 



■I/S THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

A common proverb Is, "What you do not like 
when done to yourself, do not to others." This is 
but the negative form of the same lesson taught by 
Christ five hundred years later. " As far as in me 
lies, I will not do myself the things I condemn in 
my neighbor." * 

*' Be such a son to your parents as you would de- 
sire your sons to be to you." 

'^ What you would be angry to suffer from others, 
that do not to others." f 

" We should behave to others as we would desire 
them to behave to us," :j: 

Seneca says, *' Expect from another whatever you 
do to another." 

Epictetus repeats the same sentiment and adds, 
" Only by God's aid can you attain to this." 

Buddha says, '' The holy man must desire for all 
living things the same happiness he desires for him- 
self." 

How many of our teachers of religion to-day, 
while speaking lightly of the literary and scientific 
labors of other men, could explain to the under- 
standing of an average audience the literature of 
past religions so nearly allied to our o\\n ? How 
many could explain the spiritual meaning of the 

* Menander, quoted by Herodotus, iii. p. 142. 

f Isocratcs, 431 i?.C. 

X Aristotle, quoted by Diogenes Lacrtius, 322 B.C. 



RELIGIOUS DEGENERATION. 1 79 

songs and ceremonials of the ancient Vedic worship 
or the true teachings of the Vedic scriptures? How 
much beyond mere legend, or worse, abuse, do we 
hear on these points of interest from any pulpit ? 
How much could we hear, if the attempt were made, 
of these or of the sacred scriptures of which Zoro- 
aster was the exponent ? How m.uch of the ortho- 
dox religion of ancient China, or even the analects 
of Confucius and Mencius, though these have been 
translated in English for years ? 

Yet it is a question of incalculable moment to 
understand the progress of corruption from these 
early faiths and trust in God to modern ignorance 
and superstition. It is by no means false religions 
alone that fall from their first estate ; even the relig- 
ions of Moses and Jesus have again fallen in the 
house of their friends. 

How many who talk dogmatically of doctrines 
and deride scientific study, and moreover are by 
education and profession teachers of the religion 
which Jesus taught as never man taught, and which 
was the outgrowth of the law which he came to ful- 
fil, as well as the traditions he set aside, have studied 
the Talmud of Jerusalem or Babylon, or could ex- 
plain to an inquirer the difference between these, 
much less the difference between these and the Tar- 
gum of Onkelos and Jonathan? What do we hear 
from these teachers who scorn a lesson from lilies 



l80 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

that beautify the field, and stars that sparkle in the 
sky, about the religion of Egypt, which was a 
mighty kingdom when Abraham was a wandering 
nomad ? Egypt, that enslaved Israel for four hun- 
dred years, and to a great extent moulded their 
character as a nation ! Egypt, where the infant 
Jesus found refuge from Herod, and where the 
eunuch converted by Philip was prime-minister, and 
where the early followers of the risen Redeemer 
established a powerful church ! — soon, alas ! to fall 
by its own degeneracy and give place to the old 
idolatry ! It was here, too, was made the famous 
Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible, two hun- 
dred and fifty years before Christ, and from which 
Christ quoted both law and gospel. Thus the theol- 
ogies of Christianity, professing to be the almoners 
of God's truth to all nations, are largely ignorant of 
the sacred writings in which the early fathers of our 
race once trusted, and from which, like the Jew, 
they fell by the traditions of men. This disregard 
of past literature and present study is to depri\c 
ourselves of useful and necessary teaching as to 
God's dealing with every nation and every ago but 
our own. Yet it was by these sacred books, and 
such knowledge of nature as could then bo had, that 
God led and guided the swarming millions oi the 
oriental world. These people were a part of God's 
plan from before the foundation of the world, and 



SIAM MISSIONS. l8l 

they will in some way be a part of the great here- 
after. 

Our own Bible tells us through prophet, Christ, 
and apostle that, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
they will be judged by the law and knowledge they 
had, and not by the revelation they had not. 
Whether known to them as Indra, Ahura, El, Shad- 
da, or Jehovah, the God we worship has never left 
Himself without a witness. Among the children of 
men, even to-day, notwithstanding the Gentile na- 
tions are so far behind us in civilization and con- 
sequent experience of a true faith, some of them 
manifest a better devotion by a practical support of 
their delusions than Christians do for their higher 
privileges. Some of the heathen nations to-day 
spend more money, perform more devotional work, 
submit to more sacrifice in the service of a mistaken 
faith than Christians do for theirs. 

Taking into account the difference of labor in 
Siam and the United States, the liberality exercised 
there in support of their temples and worship would 
here be equal to sixty dollars a year to each inhab- 
itant. The amount paid in this favored land for the 
same purpose is fifty cents a year to each person, 
including salaries, pew-rents, operatic choirs, and 
similar luxuries, personal but not charitable or relig- 
ious. Very recently, at a meeting in the sacred city 
of Benares, India, Kaloo Suragce made a public ap- 



1 82 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

peal for charity, and 6000 rupees (about $40,000) 
were subscribed to translate Vedic tracts, and to 
send missionaries to the Christian land of Australia 
to reform the profligacy and drunkenness reported 
to be so prevalent there. 

Donations like Mr. Peabody's of $50,000 to the 
poor of London are heralded over Christendom, 
yet this is small compared with that of a Bombay 
Parsee, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy, who gave $3,500,- 
000 in charities to men of every religion and race. 
The Committee of the Bombay District Benevolent 
Society in a report says, " Not one beggar of the 
Parsee caste has ever applied to the society for re- 
lief ; nor is a Parsee pauper ever seen in the streets." 
The Buddhists of India have now more than three 
times the number of missionaries in China than 
Christians of all denominations have ; it is estimated 
that the entire priesthood of China is over a million. 
Is not this a devotion and spirit that should be 
utilized for a better faith ? Surely in the final 
reckoning of accounts such great devotion will fur- 
nish some offset to a mistaken faith. It will be for 
us to answer in that same reckoning how much our 
faith will offset our ignorance and lack of devotion. 
Alas ! a careful examination of our own hearts would 
compel us to join in the wail coming down from 
Jew and Gentile through all past time. "Where- 
with shall I come before the Lord, and bow nn-sclf 



VIRGINS— PSALMS VIII. 3. 183 

before the high God? shall I come before Him 
with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old ? 
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or 
with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? shall I give 
my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my 
body for the sin of my soul ?" * In reply to this 
we would still be forced to the same old truth, also 
revealed by Micah : " He hath shown thee, O man, 
what is good ; and what doth God require of thee, 
but to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly be- 
fore God?" To walk humbly before God we must 
know of His exalted works ; then can we join with 
David and say, " When I consider Thy heavens, the 
work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which 
Thou hast ordained ; what is man, that Thou art 
mindful of him ? and the son of man, that Thou 
visitest him?"f 

We may without much study see that God made 
all things; but how much better for an Immortal 
soul to understand somewhat of the glory revealed 
in His works, and the wondrous things revealed in 
His past dealings with the children of men! One 
may learn in a rude way, simply, reading the parable 
of the ten virgins ; but how much more rich the 
illustration when a knowledge of oriental customs 
teaches us that the bridegroom did thus come forth 

* Micah vi. 6, 7. f Ps. viii. 3, 4. 



1 84 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

in the niglit, escorting his bride from her paternal 
home to his own ; that virgins with burning lamps 
did meet them, and when they entered the doors 
were shut. We might perhaps receive the further 
lesson that the first filHng of the lamp did not 
suffice for any of them to enter; Christians now 
cannot enter with one filling of the Holy Spirit, 
The virgins were all, as we would now express it, 
converted — that is, started right ; the foolish ones 
relied on that and slept ; the wise ones refilled and 
trimmed their lamps until the bridegroom came, 
and they alone entered the lighted mansion of the 
Lord. 

The reading of the " prodigal son" teaches after a 
fashion that " Wilful waste makes woful want ;" 
but we also often hear by way of warning that it 
was disobedience to parents worked the ruin. How 
much better to know that according to custom the 
son was justified in asking his portion of the pater- 
nal inheritance, that he might go to other lands and 
traffic for himself, while the elder son remained at 
home to possess the family estate ! 

Thus the sin Christ ilhistrated was not the dis- 
obedience of the younger son or the jealousy of tlie 
elder, but the sin of profligac}' and scU'-inthdgence, 
and the father's wiUingncss to forgive on repentance 
and to welcome the wanderer back to his love. The 
simple reading of the king's " marriage supper" for 



TYRE AND BABYLON. 1 85 

his son may even convey a lesson of doubtful jus- 
tice ; for after the king sent out to the highways 
and hedges and compelled the guests to come in, he 
consigned one of those thus compelled to come in, 
to outer darkness for appearing before him without 
a wedding garment. How much better to know 
that, whether guests came from palaces or hedges, 
they did not enter the master's presence in garments 
of their own, but were provided with a guest-gar- 
ment at the entrance-chamber, and to reject this 
and enter the presence without it was wilful con- 
tempt of the free gift of the king and the law of 
hospitality I 

Thus we learn that every invited guest of the 
heavenly King, at the marriage feast of His Son 
with the church redeemed, must come without a 
wedding garment of his own and be clothed as 
he enters His mansion in the wedding garment 
provided by the Lord Himself. It is well to read 
from the prophets that Tyre should become a barren 
rock, and Babylon a mound of earth, and Nineveh a 
heap of ruins ; but it is also well to read from the 
studies of antiquarian research, from the opened 
tombs of centuries, the hand of God in their glory 
and in their shame. 

It is well to read in Bible prophecy that kings 
shall become nursing fathers, and queens nursing 
mothers, to God's people ; but it is well also to read 



1 86 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

that the fulfilment of this promise began not only 
with Cyrus and the old dispensation, but continued 
in Constantine, the first Christian emperor, and on 
down through the centuries until even now, it is 
still being worked out in the queens of England 
and Madagascar. The history of religion, whether 
Christian, Jewish, or pagan, is a history of its con- 
tinuous evolution toward perfection by repeated re- 
formation ; even the teachings of Christ were to be 
supplemented through all time by the teaching of 
the Holy Spirit. As this can act only through hu- 
man agencies, these must develop in order that 
grace and truth may abound. If there are eras of 
great degeneracy, there must follow eras of great 
reform. No reformer ever closed the door of prog- 
ress to his successors. The monolatry of Ur was 
reformed by Abraham into the monotheism of 
Melchizedek ; corrupted in Egypt, it was rescued 
and reformed by Moses. Joshua still improved 
many of its remaining barbarisms and spread it over 
Palestine; here Samuel revived it, and David estab- 
lished it as the religion of a great nation. Idolatry 
and corruption again wrecked it, until the lessons of 
a long captivity wrought rcpctitancc. Ezra and Je- 
remiah worked out a new development, which with 
varying vicissitudes ended only in the fulness of 
time and the gospel of Christ, given for Jew and 
Gentile. 



INTELLIGENCE IN REFORMATION. iS/ 

But through all these lapses and reformations 
there was a steady progress of religion towards 
better things. The fabulous phoenix is in a spiritual 
sense a living reality. The life of religion seems often 
burned out by persecution or buried in the ashes of 
its own rubbish, to rise again to a new and better 
Hfe. 

How far and how fast this new and better hfe 
may develop will greatly depend upon the average 
intelligence of the age. Knowledge of material 
things, like knowledge of spiritual things, is not al- 
ways a blessing when confined to a favored class, 
whether priests or rulers ; the temptation under 
these circumstances to use knowledge as a stepping- 
stone to influence or power is so great that church 
and state alike yield to its influence. It is only 
when both material and religious knowledge is the 
common possession of all that civilization makes 
and maintains a steady progress of development. 
There are still superstitions, imposed upon religion 
during the mediaeval ages, which science must re- 
move before religion can fill the intellect and soul, 
making man the true image of his Maker, at least 
so far as a true manhood is intended to reveal that 
image among men. True, much has been done, 
but the error still remains of substituting creeds and 
dicta of men, for foundation principles, instead of 
the unchangeable and universal laws of God; the as- 



1 88 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

sumed inspiration of men for the real revelation of 
Deity. To worship God intelligently, we must 
know Him as He is, and not as pharisaic traditions 
may depict or a dogmatic theology dictate ; and He 
must be known to all men by the application of 
His OAvn Spirit. 

The ark of the Lord Is no longer a mystery to 
be hidden from the people and revealed only 
through mysterious ceremonies or oracular utter- 
ances. When the Saviour on the cross said, " It Is 
finished," the yawning earth, the rent rocks, and 
open graves were but the funeral utterances, as the 
darkened sun was the funeral-pall, of dead ceremoni- 
als. When the vail of the Temple was rent in twain, 
It was to reveal to all the holy of holies — the 
ark of the covenant, the mercy-seat, and brooding 
cherubim of eternal love ; God In Christ stood face 
to face with all mankind. No more sacrifice of bulls 
and of goats upon the altar, for'' the lamb slain" was 
from the foundation of the world, for all men and 
for all times. No more standing afar off In the 
outer court of the Temple awaiting the Incense, for 
'' we have a house not made with hands, eternal in 
the heavens ;" no more mediating priest or Lcvivc, 
for we have a great High Priest close b\' the throne 
of judgment. Henceforth the contrite heart, not 
tlie smoking altar, Is the carthl}- offering ; the soul's 
pra}'er, the Incense rising heavenward; the risen Re- 



PAUL AT ATHENS. 1 89 

deemcr, the pledge of our final acceptance. In that 
new Jerusalem revealed to John, where ''the Lamb 
which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them 
and lead them unto living fountains of waters, and 
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." ^ The 
breath of God first breathed upon us , and the reit- 
erated manifestation of God to us in ten thousand 
ways, is but seed sown in our hearts, for intellect to 
cultivate and the soul to ripen, that the great Master 
may reap an eternal harvest. Let us honor the 
seed and the sowing, receiving the seed in good 
ground, for, as the Master said, '' He that receiveth 
the seed in good ground is he that heareth the 
word and understandeth it."f Let not the theolo- 
gian then boast of creeds alone, but, like Paul, know 
how to be all things to all men ; let him not address 
men as sinners above all others, for Christ said they 
on whom the tower of Siloam fell were not that, 
nor they of Tyre and Sidon, for we are all alike 
sinners before God, and are sinners lost or saved 
as we reject or accept His pardoning grace, and not 
as we exalt our own ignorance and mere ideal 
emotions of a fancied spiritual experience. 

Paul, with only Gentiles for hearers, the images of 
their idolatry and their altars filling the streets and 
groves around him and covering their Acropolis be- 

* Revelations vii. 17. * Matt. xiii. 23. 



igO TI-IE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

fore him, addressed his learned audience with the 
respect such inteUigence merited : " Ye men of 
Athens" won their attention. He then argued from 
their own philosophy that the images before him, 
though executed with all the beauty and exceUence 
of human skill and art, could not personify God, 
who alone gives life and expression to all things ; 
neither could he dwell in temples made with hands. 
Then he quoted Zeno and their favorite poets to 
show that all men are alike and made of one blood, 
" his own offspring," thus proving from the laws of 
nature and their own literature that God made all 
things, and was alone entitled to our worship. He 
further argued that the mysterious divinity they 
had sought to honor by their altars, and whom they 
worshipped as the •' unknown God," is not far from 
each one of us, and was in these last days revealed 
in Christ Jesus. Had Paul known that the gospel 
of Jesus would have been promulgated in the lan- 
guage of Athens, and his own letters owe their pre- 
servation to Greek literature, he could not have 
spoken with greater respect. The result of this 
course was that certain men believed, among whom 
was Dionysius the Areopagite, who was a judge of 
the supreme court of Athens and had supervision 
of religious matters. Thus Paul's dignity and re- 
spect to a devout but mistaken worship, and his 
purely intellectual presentation of the true faith, 



TRUTH ONLY APPLIED BY SPIRIT. I9I 

secured not only a respectful hearing, but powerful 
support; from that day we hear nothing of religious 
persecution in Athens, or a total abandonment of 
the faith Paul preached. Had Paul offended the 
refined taste of the Athenians by splenetic sniffs at 
their philosophy, and outraged their devotion by 
sanctimonious sneers at their religion, neither Dio- 
nysius nor certain men of the people would have 
respected him or received his religion. The appli- 
cation of the Holy Spirit as explained by Christ is 
by means of the truth made intelligent : the dis- 
ciples heard the words of Christ from day to day, 
but it was only by oft-repeated lessons their minds 
emerged from the bondage of Judaism to the free- 
dom of salvation by repentance alone. The amount 
and kind of knowledge required for a true Christian 
faith will of course differ according to the develop- 
ment and circumstances, but it is perfectly safe and 
profitable, under all circumstances, to add to any 
present attainment. The heathen were required to 
accept the witness of God in nature, to see if per- 
chance they could find Him; the Jew was required 
to study the law of obedience, the meaning of cere- 
monial services and sacrifices; the Christian is re- 
quired to understand how in Christ all ceremonials 
are useless, how broken law is to be atoned for by 
repentance, and that the life and teachings of Christ 
lead us in spirit direct to God. The follower of 



192 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Moses was not to be ignorant of God's first great 
lessons in nature, given for the study and use of all, 
for on these very laws of nature was the law of obe- 
dience based. The Christian, because of a fuller 
revelation and a higher spiritual experience, must 
not be ignorant of the law of the prophets, for on 
these depend the existence of the Christian revela- 
tion. Spiritual devotion without the attainment of 
all possible knowledge is not religion, nor is half- 
knowledge a whole religion. The pagan idolater, 
the brutal Turk, and even the lower savage may 
teach a lesson of devotion to professing Christians : 
the misguided parent offering his first-born for 
his transgressions, the fruit of the body for the 
sin of the soul, manifests a devotion to the God 
he worships, misguided as it is, far in excess of 
ours to the God we profess to understand more 
fully. The elements of truth and goodness have 
ever been flowing as a living stream through the 
whole history of the world, and ever deepening and 
widening. Let us not by narrow-mindedness ob- 
struct its onward flow. The idea we form of God 
being based only upon our intellectual nature and 
conceptions, we cannot personify a God beyond 
what we are able to conceive and idealize. Thus a 
low nature will form a low idea of God : the God of 
the savage is a God of retaliation and revenge, be- 
cause to him these are virtues in social life. The 



SPIRITUALITY DEPENDS ON DEVELOPMENT. I93 

Jews partook largely of this in their early life, and 
it required a long experience to teach them '' that 
God had no delight in the death of the wicked ;" 
even then the Mosaic rule did not take them be- 
yond the doctrine of '* an eye for an eye, a tooth for 
a tooth." * It required four thousand years to de- 
velop their mind to the Christian standard, " love 
your enemies," etc., which precept we are still far 
from practising. Intelligent worship of Deity can- 
not be accomplished by mere spiritual exercises or 
emotions ; these emotions can only be compre- 
hended in proportion as our mind is developed and 
enlarged to improve them. This is clearly taught 
in the parable of the talents : one talent or ten 
was given according to the several ability of each. 
If a man can receive but one talent, it is im- 
possible, speaking after the manner of men, for even 
God to make him the recipient of ten. To be fitted 
for the full reception of the Holy Spirit the intellect 
of man must be developed to comprehend God's 
revelation in His works, and to study and under- 
stand His laws as revealed for our benefit. Obser- 
vation of natural laws must develop a God behind 
them, but only scientific study of nature will reveal 
higher and more refined ideas. Not that science 
alone can define the spiritual nature of Deity or 

* Matt. V. 38. 



194 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

personify His person, for our own natures are both 
spiritual and material, and any harmonious or proper 
idea of a Divine Being can only be based on mate- 
rial knowledge spiritually applied, or, as Christ ex- 
pressed it, by the spirit of truth applying to our 
hearts the knowledge already obtained by instruc- 
tion. It is thus by advanced intelligence the ideal 
God we worship has been disabused of almost 
fiendish attributes ; the Bible we revere as the 
lamp to our feet and the light to our path has 
ceased to sanction horrible doctrines. 

Max Miiller asserts, as the result of inquiry, " that 
more than half the difficulties of religious thought 
owe their origin to the ignorance and misinterpreta- 
tion of ancient language and ancient thought by 
modern language and modern thought." ^' The 
separation of the Latin and Greek church on the 
j^/io que article of the Nicene Creed, and the protests 
of Gregory and others against an evident tendency 
to tri-theistic worship, as well as other contentions, 
are proof that Miiller is far within the truth. Igno- 
rance of language, of literature, history, customs, art, 
and science generally renders a man unfit to inter- 
pret large portions of the Bible or teach religion to 
educated men, unless it be those truths which are so 
simple ''that the wayfaring man though a fool need 



" Science of Religion," p. 25. 



BRAINS IN RELIGION. I95 

not err therein ;" and even he will be none the better 
for a bigoted and ignorant theology. On the other 
hand, learning hinders no man in his devotions or in 
his religious work. Paul was none the less success- 
ful as an evangelist for having studied at the feet of 
Gamaliel, or Luke for being learned in medicine. 
Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton were none 
the less good Christians because they were scientific 
astronomers. Bacon was none the worse for his 
philosophy, or Milton for his Latin. A distinguished 
artist when asked what he mixed his paints with to 
produce such beauty and blending of tint and per- 
manency of color replied, " With brains, sir." Relig- 
ion also is more beautiful in its blending and more 
permanent in its impressions when appreciated and 
applied with brains. 

Paul tells the Corinthians that " In the church I 
had rather speak five words with my understanding, 
that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten 
thousand words in an unknown tongue. " ^' Those 
who emasculate the religion of Jesus from intelli- 
gent study, and perhaps also from a righteous life, 
leaving only a life of faith and prayer, as founded 
upon selected passages, would do well to remember 
that it is only the just who are specified as living by 
faith, f and that we are required to " pray with the 

- I. Corinthians xiv, 19, f Romans i. 17. 



196 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

understanding also." ^ If this latter condition was 
enforced, it would be greatly to the glory of God 
and the edification and profit of church meetings ; 
for, as James tells us, ''the prayer of the just availeth 
with God." f Solomon assures us that the prayer 
of the wicked is abomination. :j: 

For centuries the Christian church did not coun- 
tenance astronomy, except as necromancy. It was 
heresy to say the earth revolved around the sun, be- 
cause the Bible said the sun rose and set ; the head 
of the church declared that the Bible taught certain 
astronomical facts, and to dispute these incurred the 
penalty of death. 

The tests of innocence or guilt by fire or water, 
burning or drowning, so long prevalent in the Chris- 
tian church, were but a phase of ignorance and 
tyranny In religion, which quoted the Bible for 
authority over soul and body. His claim to de- 
termine the bounds of knowledge so developed in 
the church at one era that it not only forbade the 
study of new laws in nature, but discarded and de- 
nounced laws well known in human life. Marriage, 
the first covenant of liumanlty, was forbidden to the 
priest, that he might love only God. A monastery 
was devised, where penance would mortif}' the natu- 
ral passions, and a nunnery as co-ordinate, was to 

* I. Corinthians xiv. 15. f James v. 16 

X Prov. xxviii. 9. 



PERSECUTION. I97 

blot out the maternal instincts of womanhood. But 
thwarted nature revolted at the violation of its laws, 
until virgin mothers honored the nunneries with im- 
maculate conceptions and the monasteries swarmed 
with the miraculous offspring of celibate monks. 
Our rescue from such vile practice (carried on under 
the guise of religion), and the great freedom we en- 
joy in religious liberty, is because a developed intel- 
lect finally rebelled successfully against a base, igno- 
rant theology and rescued religion from its brutal 
grasp. The claim of the church to be the only re- 
ceptacle and arbiter of knowledge was a stumbling- 
block to the development of religion as well as 
scientific truth in Europe for a thousand years. One 
great hindrance to our missionary work to-day is 
lack of education on the part of missionaries. There 
are noble exceptions to this, but as a rule mission- 
aries are unfit for their work, because they are not 
educated to its requirements. The missionary should 
not only know thoroughly and sensibly the religion 
he is to teach, but he should also understand the re- 
ligion he is to contei*d with ; not only the supersti- 
tious beliefs of the degraded masses, who, like the 
same class in Christian lands, are almost beyond 
help, but he should by careful study investigate the 
sacred books of their written religion, the creeds of 
the priests and philosophers. If our missionaries 
had begun by learning the Vcdas of the Hindoo 



198 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Pundit and the Avesta of the Persian Parsee, as Paul 
knew the hterature of Athens, and as Christ knew 
the laws of Moses and the rabbinical traditions, 
they would have greatly facilitated their success. 
Max Miiller, Burnouf, Whitney, and others have 
written that the principle of caste, so detrimental to 
Christian work in those lands, is actually forbid- 
den in the early Hindoo and Persian scriptures of 
Brahma and Zoroaster. The Parsee and Pundit like 
the Pharisees had made void the law by traditions 
of men. If missionaries could meet the priests and 
learned men of India as Paul met the philosophers 
at Athens, and quote from their own laws and re- 
ligions, we would soon have easier access to the peo- 
ple of almost an entire continent. It is to the ex- 
perts in Arabic that the Beyrout mission is largely in- 
debted for its present success. Solomon, who wrote 
of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop 
that springs by the Avail, of beasts, of fowls, and of 
creeping things, songs a thousand and five, proverbs 
three thousand, tells us, " It is the glory of God to 
conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search 
out a matter." '' Take away the dross from the silver, 
and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer." '^ 
What shall we say then to the question of the same 
preacher of wisdom, " What has the wise man more 
than the fool?"-)- " In much wisdom is much grief." 
*Pr()v. XXV. 2, ^. f Kcc. iv, 8. 



ABUSE OF WISDOM. I99 

*' He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sor- 
row." '^ The answer is clear and the meaning plain 
to him who studies the sense thereof. Music is 
melody to him who studies the harmonies thereof. 
But there is no profitable answer to him who studies 
only a single text, and interprets that by his own 
emotions, scorning the knowledge and experience 
of others. To such a one diverse and deep sayings 
of Holy Writ afford no light. It is not a single text 
or a single fact that teaches all of wisdom, or a single 
note or bar that teaches all of music ; text must be 
aptly joined for useful knowledge, as notes are 
joined for harmony. The grief of wisdom and the 
sorrow of knowledge is when men use wisdom and 
knowledge as they use labor, and toil for mere per- 
sonal ambition or sensual gratification of a perishing 
body. This abuse of wisdom and knowledge is for- 
bidden alike by true science and true religion. The 
command to w^ork six days is no license to abuse 
work or pervert it from God's service. The work of 
the body six days tends to our welfare and happi- 
ness, but to accomplish this result the work must be 
performed in God's vineyard and as He directs. 
The same rule applies to the intellect ; it, too, must 
work but in God's service : body and mind must 
work together honestly and heartily for God's vin- 

^- Ecc. i. 18. 



200 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

tage if we expect to partake spiritually the final 
fruitage of the gathered harvest. Thus will we see 
*' that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth 
darkness.*' * 

The spirit and the understanding, like the blades 
of a scissors, must be united to do their proper 
work : either blade may cut alone, but rudely and 
roughly ; so, also, the spirit of man alone may glor- 
ify God after a fashion, and the intellect alone may 
do the same ; but if intellect or soul ever reaches a 
higher development here or hereafter, they must 
work and develop together here. We can thus 
better comprehend another proverb of Solomon, 
" God giveth to the man that is good before Him 
joy in wisdom and knowledge, but to the sinner He 
giveth travail of soul and body ;" f for the law of 
God, which is a blessing and mercy to him who 
obeys it, Is a curse and punishment to him who 
violates It. All of our civil and social laws are 
founded on this fact of our being ; and the law 
if obeyed brings its own reward, the law broken 
brings its own punishment. By thus studying the 
revelations of God, intellectually as a\'c11 as spiritu- 
ally, the so-called special providences of God cease 
to be bugbears of man's ignorance and superstition, 
or ministers to his ignorance and self-conceit. 

* Ecc. ii. 13. f Ecc. ii. 26. 



MAN— NOT ATHEIST. 20I 

When it Is once fully realized that the sun shines 
upon the evil and the good, and the rain falls alike 
upon the just and the unjust, the great law of love 
is also realized by which we know God as the 
Father of our spirits as well as the Framer of our 
bodies. When we fully reahze by fixed laws that 
seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, shall 
never cease to any man, good or bad, except by his 
own acts, so long as the world lasts, we can better 
understand the free gift of God's grace to all who 
will accept it, and better realize the words of inspira- 
tion that " the wages of sin is death," and its reverse, 
that " they who love righteousness shall reign in 
glory ;" for a sun has risen each day since time be- 
gan, and will continue to rise each day while time 
endures. 

So will the sun of God's loving mercy illumine 
our souls, both now and forever; thus man cannot 
be all an atheist, even if he would, for he is often 
driven, in spite of his lower nature, to follow that 
higher law of the spirit and receive into good 
ground that seed which will bear fruit in this world 
many fold, and in the world to come life everlast- 
ing. Every city, state, and national government, 
though contrived by men, often by wicked men, are 
forced for the good of the government to re-enact 
the ten commandments, as the best known for the 
government of men ; they may not put God in the 



202 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

letter of the constitution, but they cannot exclude 
the spirit of God's law and maintain civil govern- 
ment. Thus the code known as the common law 
comes down to us from the earliest dawn of human 
record, was remodelled in the jurisprudence of Rome, 
struggled through the night of mediaeval darkness, 
was rescued with the rescued Bible of Luther, 
and now gives the law of human right-doing to 
thousands who know not its origin, its struggle, or 
its rescue. This is true, because earthly and spiritual 
things cannot be entirely separated. The religion 
of sympathy for the poor and afflicted without the 
religion of relief is but a mockery of charity : we 
may pity the lunatic, but we pity in vain unless we 
seek to restore him to his right mind, or at least 
care for him properly ; we may pity the blind and 
deaf, but our pity is no relief without the use of 
means to better their condition. 

Knowledge of the human system, the law of its 
being in health and disease ; knowledge of remedies, 
are the legitimate agents of all we expect to accom- 
plish in the cure of bodily ailments or even mental 
disease. Knowledge like this has been banished 
from the realms of religion and in its pkicc we have 
had the amulets, bones of saints, wood of the cross, 
and the whole catalogue of holy relics and other 
mummeries by which priestly impostors once crept 
into men's houses and led captive silly souls. If the 



INTOLERANCE. 203 

pulpit would explain and enforce the laws of God 
as revealed in nature more, and creeds of men less, 
it would be all the better for progressive Christian- 
ity. A little more physiology, even at the expense 
of aesthetic theology, would develop a more healthy 
Christian, and a conscientious personal application 
of the laws of life as laws of God would be all the 
worse for tobacco and alcohol. To coddle disease 
by ignorance or indulgence of bodily desires is to 
keep a spare room ready for the devil. It was theo- 
logical intolerance which resisted the use of inocula- 
tion when first introduced in England, and nothing- 
short of its adoption by the royal family silenced the 
absurd cry of interfering with the providence of God. 
Seventy years later Jenner met the same opposition 
when he substituted the milder remedy of vaccina- 
tion. When anaesthetics were first introduced into 
the practice of midwifery the greatest opposition 
was offered by certain clergymen, who said it was 
an attempt to evade the curse pronounced upon 
Eve.'^ In the face of this opposition to science, 
past and present, the fact remains that science has 
not only ameliorated and elevated the condition of 
man, but has notably relieved religion from the 
most fearful delusions and really assisted it to be as 
required, first pure, then peaceable. To the ignorant 

* Gen. iii. i6. 



204 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

savage, and for a long time to the ignorant Chris- 
tian, the sudden darkness of the sun at noonday- 
was a fearful portent of some dreadful doom ; now 
this phenomena is but a sublime fact in the ways of 
God. The sudden appearance of Halley's comet in 
1456 horrified the Christian world, which trembled 
before it as being the prelude of pestilence, famine, 
or some direful disaster, perhaps the final judgment. 
Priests of the church prayed and fasted, church- 
bells were rung, and exorcisms practised, but the 
comet came nearer and grew brighter, and catas- 
trophe seemed so imminent that the pope himself, 
Calixtus 11. , at last came to the rescue, and issued 
his bull against the comet as dangerous to the 
prerogatives of the Romish Church. The research 
of astronomers has superseded the necessity of either 
adjurations or fulminations of this kind, and the en- 
lightened world now welcomes the erratic visitor 
among the stars as a new wonder of divine power. 
To the ignorant devotee, thunder and lightning, 
storm and tempest, volcano and earthquake, were 
the work of evil spirits, awful mysteries. 

"And his heart, though stout and brave, 
Still like muffled drum was beating 
Funeral marches to the grave." 

To the intelligent mind these phenomena of na- 
ture are but ministers of God's will, to come and 
go, not to execute vengeance, but as ordained 



BRAIN CAPACITY. 20$ 

from the foundation of the world. How can an ig- 
norant man, quailing before ghosts and evil spirits, 
develop the best of humanity or trust in God ? 
how can such a man be a reliable teacher of others, 
or a reliable statesman in times of distress and pub- 
lic calamity? An ignorant man, however he pro- 
fesses devotion to men or confidence in God, is but 
a broken reed. 

" Not his is the hand that can turn back the billow 

That threatens to sweep o'er our altars and homes; 
He may live in the breeze that but plays in the willow, 
But woe unto him when the hurricane comes." 

It is an admitted law of brain action that the 
power and capacity of the mind is developed and 
enlarged by study, and we know that by the same 
law spiritual growth may be developed and grow 
with it. By this association of spirit and intelli- 
gence we find many things material and spiritual 
may exist in perfect harmony which otherwise would 
appear, as through a glass darkly, in conflict. 

We are saved by faith, but both brain and body 
must keep step to the yearning of the soul in order 
that we may walk by sight and know God in all that 
may be known, and may realize that in each law of 
nature God has given proof that He will also per- 
form those promises in which by faith we trust 
in the resurrection of our spirits from the power of 
sin and death. Ignorance is more a sin in this age, 



206 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

because the knowledge of hidden things in nature, 
which was but recently concealed in dead languages 
and scientific books, is now written in plain language 
and in our own tongue. Add to this the facilities 
afforded by cheap books and free schools and we 
might almost doubt if an ignorant Christian could 
exist. A Christian above all others should develop 
his mind, as the controlling element of his being, not 
only for his own benefit, but that he may increase 
his religious influence among men and add to the 
general stock of truth for the benefit of his success- 
ors, or, as Solomon aptly expresses it, " increase wis- 
dom." It is this better aim that gives to us all 
that is now valuable in science and the useful arts. 
Every new truth ascertained and made known to 
others is seed sown for posterity to harvest, as we 
ourselves garner the seed sown in the past. A duty 
thus beautifully expressed in the seventy-eighth 
psalm: ''Give ear, O my people ... to the words 
of my mouth. ... I will utter dark sayings of old : 
which we have heard and known, and our fathers 
have told us. We will not hide them from their 
children, showing to the generation to come the 
praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His 
wonderful works that He hath done, . . . that they 
[the children] should make them known to their 
children : . . . that they might set their hope in 
God." 



CHAPTER XL 

Progress of Intelligence and Knowledge. 

The discoveries of Newton and Galileo were 
the outcome of those of Copernicus and Kepler. 
Wickliffe, Huss, and Jerome prepared the way for 
Luther, Erasmus, and Melanchthon, Knox for Wes- 
ley and Whitefield. No man can fully realize his 
obligations even for the simplest daily blessing to 
the careful study and intelligence of his predeces- 
sors. The carpenter's plane after many failures 
owes its fitness for its work to a back-iron so simple 
as to seem unnecessary, and yet so scientific that it 
cannot be replaced by anything else. Yeast, though 
known in Egypt before Abraham left Ur, is still a 
sore trial to Christian women, because they do not 
learn the law of vegetable fermentation. Thus when 
we refuse to learn we suffer, and too often lay it to 
God's mysterious providence. 

Torrents sweep down the mountains and desolate 
the valleys of Europe, because the mountain-side 
was ruthlessly stripped of its trees; whole districts 
of Africa have been denuded of forests, until the 
burning desert is almost literally a flaming sword to 



208 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

expel man from what might be a paradise of beauty 
and fertility. The advance of every generation is 
begun on the ended labors of the past. Our simplest 
comforts are often the outcome of years, even ages, 
of experiment and study. The elegant knives, axes, 
chisels, and edged tools of to-day are but improve- 
ments on the flint and stone implements of pre- 
historic times. We ride over land and sea by 
steam because Watt, Stephenson, Fulton, and 
others studied steam scientifically. 

We converse over continents and under seas be- 
cause Franklin risked his life to learn the pathway 
of lightning; because Morse, Henry, and others 
studied the correlation of electric and magnetic 
forces and the application thereof to the utilities of 
life. The thunderbolt is none the less in Jehovah's 
hand and launched at His bidding ; but we can 
answer in part, at least, better than Job the chal- 
lenge, '' Canst thou send lightnings, that they may 
go and say unto thee, Here we are ?" * Thus from 
the sparks that fall from the Master's hand His 
children from age to age kindle new fires upon His 
altars. The first tremor of the great sea cable, 
though but the prelude of its power, came up clear 
from the ocean depths fixed by types multiplied by 
machinery, carried far and wide by steam. The 

* Job xxxviii. 35. 



SEWING MACHINES, ETC. 209 

whole earth heard a voice from the heavens above 
and the sea below, saying, '' Behold the wonders 
God hath wrought!" By such study, by such trans- 
mission of knowledge, we plough the ground, sow 
the seed, cultivate the soil, harvest the crops, grind 
the grain to feed a multitude, in the time, and with 
less labor of man than was once required to feed a 
single family. Improved instruments of agricultural 
and mechanical labor may be said to have banished 
slavery from every country where such implements 
are used. The steam-engine is the obedient servant 
of civilization where man was heretofore the drudge. 
Hood's " Song of the Shirt" was but yesterday the 
mournful and truthful dirge of oppressed woman- 
hood ; to-day the sewing-machine, an instrument of 
pure scientific research, does all her work without 
complaint. 

" A mere machine of iron and wood 
Tiiat toils for Mammon's sake. 
Without a brain to ponder and craze, 
Or a heart to feel and break. " 

Our mothers but little longer ago carded, spun, 
and sewed the thread of their own garments. One 
or two new suits a year, of eight or ten yards, was 
enough for work-days. A Sunday suit of the same 
length and breadth was a lifetime luxury, and the 
fashion thereof changed not. Now our wives and 



210 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

daughters can hire their coarsest work done by the 
finest of servants ; can wear a Sunday suit every day 
— fifty yards instead of ten is the size thereof, the 
form changing with some reference to the purse, but 
mainly according to fashion-books. Often '' they 
toil not, neither do they spin, yet lo ! Solomon in 
all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." The 
better construction of prisons for the cure rather 
than the punishment of crime, the better construc- 
tion of hospitals for the cure of disease, better sani- 
tary regulations to prevent disease, popular writings 
of scientific studies, a free education — these and a 
thousand other blessings secured to the poor and 
destitute are the legitimate result of scientific in- 
quiry and deduction, prompted also, we will hope, 
often at least, by a true spiritual sympathy. In 
thirty years four millions of machines of iron and 
steel have been made to do the work, and relieve 
flesh and blood from the toil of ill-paid labor, equal 
in extent to the working power of the entire race. 
Every puff of steam, every churchrbell calling to 
worship, every organ pealing its notes of praise, the 
buzz of every spindle and wheel in factories, the 
blast of every forge, the clink of every hammer, are 
but intellectual notes of human praise added to the 
everlasting anthem of the heavenly hosts. The 
working power of steam in England in 1865 was 
estimated as adequate to perform the labor of 



GUNPOWDER— SOCIAL SCIENCE. 211 

seventy-six million men, adding just that amount of 
productive force to the working population. Even 
the church-goer is benefited by a better civilization. 
The mellow light of stained glass, the cushioned 
pew, warm churches, artistic music, are all luxuries 
if not graces. Dives can worship in an orthodox 
cathedral at his own door, select his own priest with- 
out regard to the house of Aaron or the tribe of 
Levi, hear his own dogmas delivered ex cathedra as 
divine truths. His temple is honestly dedicated to 
God, with perhaps also a goodly mortgage thereon. 
He can say to his satisfied soul, " Soul, take now 
thine ease; this debt will not be required of thee." 
In fact, every exercise of public worship, every intelli- 
gent enjoyment of religion, every successful enter- 
prise of benevolence, even the application of spirit- 
ual experience, is more or less profited by and de- 
pendent on the results of scientific study, which 
thus becomes an intelligent aid to divine service 
here and a reasonable ground of hope for life here- 
after. The art of printing alone has been an all-im- 
portant factor in limiting religious torture to the use 
of printer's ink. 

The discovery of gunpowder put an end to feudal 
barbarism. Social science, though scarcely organ- 
ized as a separate branch of study, exerts a benefi- 
cent influence on both church and state. It benefits 
formal worship by organizing institutions, suggest- 



212 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

ing laws upon which the existence of order and the 
possibiHty of progress largely depend. Even the 
ten commandments are re-enacted and embodied in 
the code of civilized communities everywhere. Tliis 
is done, for the most, entirely on the ground of poli- 
tical economy, ofter by men spoken of with re- 
proach as sinners from a pulpit protected by world- 
ly wisdom. 

The same mail service which forbids and restrains 
the circulation of obscene literature provides for the 
cheap distribution of religious papers and books, so 
profitable to every Sunday-school and church. The 
minister who attempts to teach without any worldly 
science of worldly things is as much out of place in 
the pulpit as some of the teachers of the first church, 
whom Paul commanded to " keep silence in the 
church" ^' when they essayed to speak in unknown 
tongues without an interpreter. Music with only 
spiritual inspiration, without knowledge of the laws 
of sound or the harmony of notes, would be unfit 
praise to Jehovah, very different from that sing- 
ing *' with the understanding" f enjoined by the 
Psalmist from the *' trumpet peal," timbrel, organ's 
solemn swell, and choral skill which is due to Ilim 
who doeth all things well, and whose everlasting 
anthem is attuned to the music of the spheres. 

* I. Cor. xiv. 28. f Ps. xlvii. 7. 



SCIENCE AND BIBLE. 213 

Thus, according to David and Paul, we are to teach 
with the understanding, we are to " pray with the 
understanding," we are to sing ''with the under- 
standing ;""''■ and as Paul puts it in general, '' Breth- 
ren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in 
malice be }'e children, but in understanding be 
men." f What David and Paul thus declare need- 
ful we may not discard, " for none of us liveth to 
himself, and no man dieth to himself." :{: 

If the Christian of to-day should still be inclined 
to think lightly of knowledge, let him reflect, as he 
reads the precious promises upon which he rests his 
hopes of eternal life, that pure science and close 
study by scholars without number have furnished him 
with that word of life. The gospels, epistles, indeed 
the whole Bible, were for generations, even centuries, 
scattered about and mixed up with well-meaning 
but unauthenticated and often untruthful scriptures. 
It was in consequence of these apocryphal writings, 
not then discarded, teaching absurd superstitions as 
to the childhood of Christ, the divine motherhood 
of Mary, and extreme hypostatic differences in a 
triune deity, that gave rise to Mohammedanism 
as promising a return to a pure monotheistic wor- 
ship. It took more than three hundred years of 
study before councils had compiled manuscripts or 

'• I. Cor. xiv. 9-14. f I. Cor. xiv. 20. 

J Romans xiv. 7. 



214 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

given sufficient intelligent consideration to formulate 
a permanent religion. It was not ignorant reading 
or self-satisfied inspiration that guided the early 
fathers, but laborious scientific research. To sepa- 
rate truth from error thousands of manuscripts in 
various languages had to be studied carefully and 
accurately before even a general opinion of their 
authenticity could be formed. 

The present collection or canon of scripture we 
prize so highly required for its compilation a knowl- 
edge of history and sociology as well as of literature 
and language. How can one tell the meaning of 
w^ords in a foreign, perhaps a dead, language unless 
he knows the life, customs, and association of cir- 
cumstances to which the language was applied? It 
was this want of knowledge as to the colloquial 
signification of English words that misled the other- 
wise competent Frenchman to translate Milton's ex- 
pression '* Hail, horrors, hail !" with '' Comment vous 
portez-vous!" — "How do you do, horrors .f^" Cus- 
toms, colloquial phrases, similes, and symbols used 
in the Bible for teaching important truth must not 
be translated thus, or error and bigotry arc soon de- 
fended by mistaken texts. To determine the authen- 
tic books of the Bible as we now accept it required 
from many scholars a careful application to San- 
scrit, Syriac, Chaldce, Ethiopian, Persian, Hindoo, 
Arabic, Armenian, Schivonian, Samaritan, three 



THE BIBLE. 215 

Egyptian Gothics, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and a 
multitude of minor dialects in addition to modern 
languages ; a knowledge of which was required to 
adapt the Bible to common use among different 
people. This study was well done by the holy 
fathers Polycarp (martryed 169 A.D.), Tertullian, 
Irenaeus (died about 201), Cyprian (martyred 258), 
Clement (died 220), Eusebius (died about 340), 
Gregory Nazianzen (died about 390), Gregory of 
Nyssa (died about 396), Cyril of Jerusalem (died 
about 380), Cyril of Alexandria (died about 444), 
Athanasius (died about 371), Chrysostom (died about 
447), Hippolytus (martryed 236), Origen (died 253), 
Jerome (died 423), and a multitude of others. Even 
after the canonical books were determined by coun- 
cil or accepted by common consent the text was 
still corrupted by errors of translation, or the mean- 
ing of words translated erroneously, and it was only 
by studying the text word by word, or, as the Bible 
expresses it, by " being with former translations 
diligently compared and revised," that we have a 
Bible in almost every essential part authentic be- 
yond question, even if not verbally inspired. Even 
in English, men of piety and learning from the 
Venerable Bode to Dean Alford have corrected and 
improved it by the richest treasures of their learn- 
ing and study, especially as to Greek and Latin 
manuscript. In 727 Bede gave to England the first 



2l6 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Instalment of English Scriptures — the Gospel of 
John — translated from the Latin Vulgate. For a 
hundred and fifty years this Avas the only English 
edition of any portion of the Scriptures. King 
Alfred the Great then produced a translation of the 
Psalms. A century later Alfric, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, translated the first seven books of the Old 
Testament. The works of Bede, Alfred, and Alfric 
were in the Saxon language, and were in general use 
until Saxon gave place to Norman-French. About 
three centuries later it was absorbed in the present 
English tongue. 

In the reign of Edward I. (1250 A.D.) a fairly 
written copy of the Bible cost in England $150, 
or about a year's wages for a laboring man, who 
only heard the contents by walking miles to a 
church, where the Bible remained, chained to the 
pulpit. In 1375 WIckliffe, in order to oppose more 
effectually the Church of Rome, translated the entire 
Old and New Testament from the Latin Vulgate 
into English. This work of Wickliffe's contributed 
largely toward giving stability and permanence to 
the English language. For nearly two centuries 
longer the sway of the Romish Church scaled, or 
nearly scaled, the sacred volume from common use. 
In the sixteenth century, and especially the first 
quarter of it, when heresy-hunting was a prominent 
feature of the English Church, it was regarded as 



BIBLE IN ENGLAND. 21/ 

heresy to read a new or unauthorized version of the 
New Testament, and the offence was punished with 
death. In the reign of Henry VIII. this power had 
reached its chmax, and a succession of events rapid- 
ly separated the Church of England from Rome, thus 
preparing the way for a general reception of the 
Scriptures in the vernacular tongue. Ten years 
previous to this, however, Tyndale, fleeing from the 
Continent to avoid persecution, prepared an English 
translation of the New Testament from the original 
Greek. In 1526 this was published in England. In 
1530 he added the first five books of the Old Testa- 
ment, and in 1535, assisted by Coverdale, produced 
an entire Bible. This was a great improvement on 
preceding efforts, and exerted a wonderful effect. 
Four years after a new translation appeared credited 
to Thomas Matthewe ; this was, however, supposed 
to be a fictitious name, John Rogers (afterwards 
burned in the reign of Mary) being regarded as the 
real author. Cranmer's "great Bible," as it was 
called, appeared in 1539; i^ ^54^ Henry VIII. issued 
a decree that all parish churches not already pro- 
vided with a copy should procure one and should 
put it in a convenient place for public use. 

In 1560 the Geneva Bible appeared. This was 
a favorite edition with the Puritans and Scotch 
Presbyterians; it is estimated that fifty editions 
appeared during the reign of Elizabeth. The Douay 



2l8 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

version of the Bible in 1609 and 1610 is the only 
other version of special note that preceded the ver- 
sion now in use, compiled during the reign of James 
I. For the first time in English history, literature 
and learning were essential to the better understand- 
ing of Bible truth, though even the version of King 
James was limited by the royal command to taking 
the then accepted version (the Bishop's Bible) as a 
guide, making as few changes as possible. Under 
all the circumstances it was a wonderful success. 
Heretofore the Bible had been largely used as a 
palimpsest underscore of church theology and priest 
ly power ; now it was brought to the surface and 
spoke to every man in his own language. Like the 
old Septuagint version of the Alexandrian church, 
James' translation is stamped with the learning of 
the age, and gave fixity to the language in which it 
was written. What the Bible of Luther and Eras- 
mus did for the German people the Bible of James 
did for the English. Before this, the church at large 
had no Bible as a single work of reference and 
authority ; they were dependent, as the Jews before 
them had been, on manuscript and traditions, and 
thus were in imminent danger of falling into the same 
pit of destruction through the traditions of men. 
But the sifting process, commenced more than three 
hundred years ago, has passed down from hand to 
hand, from council to council, from version to vcr- 



THE BIBLE. 219 

sion, from seminary to seminary, from scholar to 
scholar, until the last shroud of mediaeval ignorance 
and bigotry has been thrown off, and we have a free 
gospel of truth instead of a gospel of oppression 
and falsehood. The science of printing early took 
up the collected canon, gave it as a new inspira- 
tion, a living guide, to each individual soul in the 
language of living men. Steam, another gift of 
science, multiplied the copies, giving new security 
against new interpolations. The study of language 
has translated the accepted version in almost every 
spoken tongue. Machinery has printed, bound, and 
distributed it, until the people of almost every 
nation may read the word of life in their own 
tongue, in their own home, and at their own price. 
In 61 years 34 million copies of the Bible, and por- 
tions of it, have been distributed by the American 
Bible Society. In 71 years 82 million copies have 
been distributed by the British and Foreign Bible 
Society, printed in 240 languages and dialects. Other 
societies have distributed 43 million copies. The 
Bible that cost $150 in the reign of Edward can 
now be had for 25 cents ; a New Testament for 5 
cents; and if any are too poor for that, a copy may 
be had for the asking. 

Notwithstanding all changes and improvements in 
the text, it is not uncommon to hear the English 
Bible quoted and insisted upon for dogma and doc- 



220 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

trine as if it had been delivered to man verbatim et 
literatmi in modern English language. Thus we see 
that ignorance, superstition, and self-interest had 
corrupted the Scriptures in spite of spiritual devo- 
tion. Scientific study restored the text to its origi- 
nal authority and usefulness. Let us honor science, 
then, as the rescuer of our spiritual treasures rather 
than ignorance, the enslaver thereof. It will be the 
fault of this and succeeding generations if the seed 
thus gathered fails to be again sown to vegetate and 
cover the earth with new verdure. Ignorance and 
superstition, dogmas enforced as radical truths, make 
wider the gate and broader the way that leads to 
death. In a similar manner self-righteous spiritu- 
ality and egotistic experiences, enforced as rules for 
the working of the Holy Spirit, narrow the gate, 
obstruct the way that leads to life everlasting. The 
individual letters of the alphabet in which the Bible 
is printed, the power of letters to combine and form 
words, forming words into sentences, to convey 
thoughts of men and truths of God, are all strictly 
achievements of science. Thus in the Christian re- 
ligion, above all others, a sacred scripture, a sacrr 
literature, and a righteous life should be insepara. 
connected, notwithstanding the folly of friends, the 
enmity of enemies. Amid all the varied standards 
of taste, for nearly three hundred years the English 



DUTY. 221 

Bible has maintained its place, as Spenser so aptly- 
expressed it, '' a well of English undefiled." 

Amid the advances of literature and language the 
English Bible has maintained its excellence. Amid 
all the changes of temporal rule it has maintained 
its influence ; driven from one nation, it has taken 
root in another, and developed until it has returned 
to reign ascendant and resume its heritage ; banished 
from the pulpit by intolerance, it found refuge in 
the heart of the people until it burst forth into new 
life and universal acceptance. If we would have the 
Bible maintain its supremacy with advancing civili- 
zation, we must teach men the '' thus saith the 
Lord " and not the Shibboleth of Gilead.'^' 

When the lawyer asked Christ what he should do 
to inherit eternal life, he said to him, " Love God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy strength, and with all thy mind." f The climax 
was complete only when Christ added intelligent 
service. We are not to worship God in any image 
coarser than the intelligence. He breathed upon 
man when He made him a little lower than the 
angels. Nothing short of this will rescue heathen 
lands from the bondage of ignorance and supersti- 
tion. Three hundred and fifty millions, including 
the Romish Church and every sect of those gener- 

* Judges xii. 6. j f Luke x. 27. 



222 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE, 

ally called Christians, as first named at Antioch, is 
the entire force of those professing faith in Christ, 
after four thousand years of preparation under the 
Old Testament dispensation and nearly two thou- 
sand years more of teaching under the New. Of the 
other populations of the world, an approximate esti- 
mate computes i6o million as Mohammedans, 500 
million as Buddhists, 120 million as Brahmins, 200 
million as heathen of varied type. The followers of 
Mohammed, now numbering nearly 200 million, have 
prospered on the graves of the apostolic churches for 
nearly one thousand years. The Christian churches 
which seemed mxOst firmly planted by the early 
fathers in Asia and Africa, with head-quarters at 
Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, sickened and 
weakened under sectarian disputation and theolo- 
gical culture, until they became easy victims to the 
power of Mohammed and willing converts to the 
faith of the false prophet of Mecca. 

The weakness of the Christian church was the 
strength of Mohammedanism. All that was strong, 
all that led to enthusiasm and success, all that 
touched the heart and roused the better nature of 
the miserable Arabs, leading them to hope for bet- 
ter things, was the great central truth in the creed 
of Islam, " There is but one God." \\'hile Chris- 
tians were quarrelling and dividing on the triune per- 
sonalities of the great " / a///.'^ the fallen and de- 



SHALL CHRISTIANITY PERISH? 223 

graded children of Ishmael grew and spread, until a 
shattered and aimless race were welded into a vast 
empire. Like Moses, Mohammed led forth a beg- 
gared race under the banner of one God — led them 
from the Pacific to the Atlantic. In a single century 
the Koran became law and gospel where for six hun- 
dred years the church had been established. The 
strength of Mohammedanism was monotheism ; its 
weakness, what may lead to its future dissolution, 
what is now draining its life-blood, is embraced in 
the second great doctrine, '' Mohammed is His 
prophet." Modifications of this latter idea taint 
almost every creed of Christendom. " There is 
but one God" led Islam like Israel to glory and 
to empire. The scimetar of Ahah and Mohammed, 
like the sword of the Lord and Israel, was a resist- 
less power; but when the power becomes debased to 
mere human conquest, and the religion grows sub- 
servient to individual pride and passion, Islam like 
Israel must perish in her turn. In view of these 
facts, the question, Shall the Christian church of the 
present day thus fail or retrograde? becomes one of 
starthng moment. Estimating the population of the 
earth at one billion. Max Miiller gives the follow- 
ing estimate of the various religions : '^■■ 

* " Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. p. 23. 



224 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

Per Cent. 

Buddhists , . 31,2 

Brahmins , 13.4 

Mohammedans , ,...<,...,. = 15.7 

Heathen , „,. 8.7 

Christians „ . » , . . 30.7 

Jews 3 

100.00 

Of the Christian percentage estimated, about 20 
per cent belong to the Greek and Romish churches. 
These, stanch orthodoxy anathematizes as the scar- 
let woman of Babylon, ** mother of harlots." 

Will the small remaining percentage of Protes- 
tants, sectarians, as progressing for nearly two 
thousand years, be able to convert the 80 per 
cent of heresy and heathenism to unity in God ? Of 
the ten or twelve hundred million of humanity 
daily floating down the river of time, it is estimated 
that about thirty-two million a year, or sixty a 
minute, sink beneath Its waters. According to pre- 
valent orthodoxy some eight per cent of these 
twenty-six million, forty-eight a minute, will annu- 
ally go down to death without a saving faith, and 
the other six million a year, or twelve a minute, go 
beneath the dark river of time contending as to the 
ground of their better faith. (There are not less than 
fifty different faiths represented in the United States.) 

The decline and death of any religion is preceded 
by conflict within its own borders. Even the Chris- 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE TOGETHER. 22$ 

tian religion, whenever and wheresoever it has once 
obtained a footing and afterwards retreated, has 
done so because of internal factions rather than ex- 
ternal foes. If religion lives and does its work, it 
must avail itself of existing circumstances, co-operate 
in all things lawful with existing governments, ex- 
isting laws, and existing progress in science. Relig- 
ion must not scoff at the community or government 
which protects it, or sneer at the science which ele- 
vates it and crowns it. Knowledge and wisdom 
must continue to enlighten a nation, and statesman- 
ship to guide its government. Let religion do this, 
and the day is not far distant when the knowledge 
of the Lord will cover the earth and all the people 
honor Him. 

Religion alone has grown up, prospered, and 
passed away. Science alone has in like manner been 
swept away in the conflict of forces which have de- 
stroyed empires and nations in all time, that a better 
flesh and blood may inherit the earth. The har- 
monious union and religion of spiritual and intellec- 
tual development will, as a rule, sustain the trials 
which test the strength of nations. False creeds in 
religion must perish, false theories in science must 
pass away, but the eternal truths of religion and 
science must remain forever. The Pyramids, the 
Sphinx, images and temples that once were glow- 
ing utterances of a living faith, are now the silent 



226 THE CREATION AND THE SCRIPTURE. 

memorials of the forgotten dead. Yet on the banks 
of the Nile those ruins have remained, the silent 
oracles of a long since extinct religion. The screw 
of Archimedes, a scientific pump based on a law of 
dynamics, still raises the waters of the sacred river 
for tillage, twenty centuries after the religion of 
Archimedes and the Pharaohs is no more. But as 
each nation was gathered into the harvest of the 
Lord, a seed-corn of truth was saved and planted 
again among men, to bloom in new beauty and bear 
better fruit, until the gospel that once crept along 
the banks of rivers and by the shore of seas will 
by compass, chronometer, and steam cross every 
ocean, bear fruit in every land for the healing of the 
nations. 

A religion suited to all men and all ages must be 
based upon a central element of unchanging truth, 
sacred from all mere human inquisitions. The ap- 
proaches to this central truth may be different, may 
be obstructed by a narrow theology or made easy 
by intelligent study. In this connection we may 
profit by the history of all past religions. We find 
mere theologies which in one generation were main- 
tained as vital principles and bitterly defended were 
in the next regarded as unimportant or discarded as 
false and dangerous. Over and above all these con- 
flicts, over and above these wrecks of effete dogmas 
and sectarian doctrines, the great central truths 



CONCLUSION. 227 

of the Bible have become more prominent, better 
developed, more permanent, fundamental truths, 
estabHshed as the body of religion, while creeds, 
confessions, conditions of forms, and modes of ser- 
vice are regarded as outer and changing garments. 
Does not this warrant a reasonable hope that the 
day is drawing near when wrangling of churches, and 
denunciation of men for conscience' sake, will cease, 
and the cheerful chimes of " peace on earth and 
good-will toward men" will swell the ceaseless praise 
and worship of God for all coming time ? Ignorance 
will undoubtedly linger long in the lap of humanity, 
vice will flourish in dark places, religion without 
understanding will be proscriptive, understanding 
without religion continue wicked. But ignorance 
will pass away, wickedness will work out its own 
punishment, and the words of the waiting Jew, 
near the willow-fringed rivers of Babylon, twenty- 
five centuries ago, will still stand good: ''As for 
truth, it endureth and is always strong; it liveth 
and conquereth forever more." * 

*' In the world's broad field of battle, 
In the soul's last search for life, 
Be not like dumb driven cattle 
Be a hero in the strife." 



* Esdras iv. 38 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Aaron 209 

Abraham 186 

Accidents 28 

Adam 12 

Adultery 16 

Agassiz 71 

Ages (dark) 87 

Ahriman 169 

Ahura (Mazda) 171-181 

Aholiab 134 

Alexander 106 

Alexandria 51 

Alleghany College " 58 

Alphabet 218 

Anaesthetics 203 

Anaxagoras 108 

Animals (named) 12 

" (condemned) 112 

Amos 133 

Apostles: 

Education 156 

Contentions 157 

Inspiration 155 

Archimedes 226 

Aristotle 178 

Artaxerxes 171 

Astronomy 57, 145 

Atheist 201 

Aztecs 106 

Babbling (vain) 139 

Babylon 179, 185 



PAGE 

Baptism 128 

Bees 66 

Benares 181 

Berzaleel 134 

Bible 140 

Truth 3 

Discrepancies 15 

and Theology 86 

Persecution 104, I15 

and Witchcraft 116 

not sufficient 123 

and Creation 14I 

and Poetry 146 

and Astronomy 147 

and Science 151 

and Intelligence 207 

translation 213 

Canon of 214 

in England 217 

Blauvelt 128 

Body and members 50 

" and mind 96 

Bombay 182 

Books 106 

Bramah 49 

Bruno 14, 128 

Buddha 49, 182 

Burnouf 173 

Cable 208 

Cairo 173 

Calcutta 33 



229 



230 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Calixtus II 104 

Calvin , 102 

Caste (in India) 54 

Catechism 127 

Charity 181, 201 

China 42, 173, 179 

Christ educated 156 

Church, early 13 

prevents progress 13 

membership 19, 128 

Councils 24, 130 

contentions 24, 51 

Catholic 39, 127 

persecutes 52 

not organized by Jesus. . 66 

English 102 

Protestant 102 

and libraries 106 

and schools 106, 121 

examinations 124 

excommunications 12S 

development 119, 130 

Christian 167 

Greek 168 

and missions 169 

Confucius 44, 172 

Comet. 204 

Constantine 107 

Constantinople 51 

Copernicus 14, 109, 14S 

Councils not authority. ... 19 

Crandall, Prudence.. 126 

Cranmer 129 

Creeds 125 

Crusades 106 

Cyril loS 

Cyrus ... 170 

Dark Ages 81 

Darius 170 



PAGE 

Darwin , 72 

David 93 

Devotion 182 

Development 103, 1S7 

Disease 28, 99, 202 

Disciples 156 

Diversity 102 

Dives 211 

Duperron, Angeretal 172 

Duty 221 

Eclipse 204 

Education of Apostles 156 

Children 73 

Christians 161 

Chinese 173 

Disciples 156 

Jesus 158 

Mahometans 175 

Ministers 156 

Egypt iSo 

Emotions 56, 84 

Epictetus 17S 

Epidemics 30 

Evolution 40, 72, 83 

Excommunication 113 

Faith 79, 93 

Famine 36 

Filial duty 74 

Filioque 52 

Fire chariot 91 

Forms not essential 16S 

Flowers 67, 159 

Free schools 120, 156 

Franklin 20S 

Friday, superstitions about. 48 

FulUin 208 



(lalilco. 



2, 14. 149, 203 



INDEX. 



231 



PAGE 

Generation 71, 141 

Geology 70, 142 

God 201 

in nature 8 

in rain, etc 22 

in science ■. 27 

of heathens 40 

Unsearchable 93 

of Jews 131 

of Christ 124 

and Job 150 

Goodyism 89 

Gray 71 

Gravitation 21 

Greece 38 

Heathen 165 

Heavens declare 85 

Heredity 75, 163 

Heresy 65, 224 

Higher life 88 

Hindoos 166 

Hospitals 162 

Hulda 154 

Huss 129 

Huxley 71 

Hymenaeus 106 

Hypatia 107 

Ignorance 204 

India 53, 1C6 

Intemperance 30 

Intolerance 51, 203 

Inspiration 44, 135 

Instinct 99 

Isaac 41 

Isaiah 154 

Ishmael 41, 51 

Isocrates 178 



PAGE 

Jesus 2 

and Jew 14 

and unchastity 16 

teaching of 42, 46, 161 

and prayer 46 

and organized church. . . 64 

and intolerance 66 

education of 155 

and disciples 155 

parables of 183 

Jenner 203 

Jew 14, 131, 172 

John and James 66, 157 

Job 150 

Judgments 25 

Keshub Chunder Sen 170 

Kings (supper) 185 

Knowledge 207 

Latimer 129 

Law 7 

to be studied 3, 9 

unchanging 8, 91 

inspired 27 

violated 28, 161 

common 37, 202 

daily use cf 38 

and prayer 45 

not created by study. ... 62 

teachers 63, 153 

music 146 

from beginning 153 

universal 202 

Leibnitz 21 

Lewis, Taylor 145 

Liberty 51 

Libraries ic6 

Light 27 



232 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Luke 157 

Luther 53, 116 

Machinery 208 

Magic 117 

Mail service 212 

Man (social) 162 

Manuscripts burned 106 

Marriage 196 

Max Miiller 194 

Medicine 73 

Melancthon no 

Melchisedec 186 

Mexico 106, 192 

Micah 183 

Mind and spirit 95, 200 

Ministry 49, 86, 138, 170 

Missions 170, 181, 197 

Montague 327 

Moody I 

Moses.. 14, 116, 131, 166, 186, 
198 

Music 133, 212 

Mythology 165 

New Jersey Synod. .2, 102, 130 

Newton 21, 26 

Noah 119 

Omar (Caliph) 106 

Origen 215 

Orion 151 

Osiris 167 

Pagan charity 181 

devotion iSi 

sacrifice 116 

schools 1 74 

Parish schools 156 

Parables 1S3 



PAGE 

Parents 73, 79, 99 

Paul.. .25, 46, 49, 96, 107, 126, 

157, 189, 213 

Persecution 39, 43, 104, 197 

Persia 44, 166 

Peter 87 

Pharisees 156 

Phoenicia 38 

Physiology 72, 203 

Philip 126 

Plague 30 

Pleiades 151 

Poetry in the Bible 146 

Population of Earth 223 

Powder 211 

Prayer 47, 213 

Prodigal son 184 

Prophets 153 

Printing 211, 219 

Providence, special.. . , 47, 203 

" general 201 

Pyramids 225 

Pythagoras 148 

Pulpit 47, 56 

Pulpit theology 2, 62 

Queens 297 

Rain 33, 45 

Railroads 31, 52 

Reason 12 

Records fallible 15 

Religion 2 

and science. .. .5, 26, 73, 105 

and law 9,26, 102 

and intelligence. . .9, 51, 94 

study necessary to. . .13, loi 

and faith iS. 125 

and right fooling 20. 325 

and emotion 56 



INDEX. 



233 



PAGE 

Religion and fact 61 

for all 63 

teachers of 64, 153 

and health 73 

early S3, 85, 167 

and ignorance 94 

ancient 131, 165 

and music 134 

diverse 153 

and heathen 167 

decay of 1S7 

and terror 204 

Religious poetry 146 

symbols 155, 168 

charity 173 

organizations 173 

devotion 181 

Righteousness 88 

Rituals 124 

of Moses ... 131 

of Jews 135 

of Jesus 155 

of disciples 156 

Sierra Leone 176 

Spontaneous generation. . . 145 

Tabernacle 134 

Talmud 179 

Temple 135 

Theology, pulpit i, 3 

not religion 17 



PAGE 

Theology and perfection 18, 28 

and progress 26, no 

and error 28 

and persecution 39, 106 

theoretical 57 

and claims 86 

and science 105 

illiberal 126 

and devotion 188 

arbitrary 203 

Unity 9 

Urban 2, 61 

Vain babbling 139 

Vain wisdom 198 

Vaccination 32, 203 

Vedas, Hindoo 116, 170 

Veil, rent 65 

Virgins 183 

Wallace 143 

Water (in India) 33, 54 

Watts 208 

Wisdom, vain 198 

" abuse 199 

Witchcraft in 

Whitefield 207 

Ximenes 106 

Zend-Avesta 173 

Zoroaster 44, 171 



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